James McGrath & David Band – Ocular/Speculo and Big Fun!
Image: Speculo IV- 130 w cm x 150cm- Oil on canvas and black acrylic 8 Panels
James McGrath
Sydney-born artist James McGrath returns to Woolahra’s Olsen Irwin gallery alongside the work of the late David Band.
Ocular/Speculo is McGrath’s third showing at the gallery, a mesmerising showcase of McGrath’s curlicued florals. McGrath blends a baroque sensibility with interest in technology, and in Ocular/Speculo, he uses 3D modelling to project floral arrangements on complex surfaces, which he then paints.
The exhibition comprises two series of works: the Ocular series renders McGrath’s ornate paintings as if their subjects were stretched across the surface of orbs, while Speculo favours kaleidoscopic prisms that disjoint and double the elaborate designs, surrounding the viewer with a baroque vision of opulence.
Running simultaneously to McGrath’s series is Big Fun!, a slight exhibition of eight paintings by David Band (1959-2011). Band finds romance in the intimate arrangement of line and shape. In Untitled Orchid (2006), for instance, Band builds a hanging stream of flowers with clean black line work – a far cry from McGrath’s kaleidoscopic take on the same. Band’s use of line and shape effortlessly draws one close, as in the intimate Dancing (2008), which evokes a sense of touch in its overlapping shapes and the suggestion of two figures – the longer one of which slowly folds around the other. The inclusion of a sister painting, Tomorrow Morning (2010), in the exhibition only adds to this suggestion. (ZS)
May 25–Jun 12 (Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm). Olsen Irwin Gallery, 63 Jersey Rd, Woolahra. Info: olsenirwin.com
BY ZEIYA SPEEDE
