Material Object

The presentation features a suite of new works by Michael Dell Chauncey Flay and Lætitia Jacquetton, three artists known for their attention to material and surface.

A palpable stillness runs through the surfaces of Dell’s work, which seemingly provides the viewer a sense of static and unoccupied space. Subject and non-subject are rendered with the same meticulous treatment, where the formal distinction between the pictorial and the abstract becomes irrelevant. In contrast to Dell, the occupation of object and space is emphasised in Flay’s works, by excavating the natural object from its own environment. He employs a meditative approach to his work of construction and deconstruction- involving slow processes of breaking stones and reconstructing them through faceting and polishing. Both artists are driven by the fascination to elevate the ordinary.

Dell pays consistent attention to the picture surface through his repeated process of addition and erasure. Fibre and fine irregularities in the linen substrate emerge and draw the eye. Such mark making is not a reduction of painterly gesture to achieve anonymity of the artist, rather, it is a process that cultivates an ambiguity towards the representational subject. Based on locations in the region of the artist’s home in Nelson, Dell’s evocative pastoral landscapes bisected with roads feel familiar, though they could also be anywhere or nowhere at all. Behind the beautifully worked and muted surfaces the landscape becomes detached from narrative, like a faded memory, unanchored in time.

Flay’ use of exposing the materiality positions oscillates between the spatial and temporal environment formed by the relationship of the spectator, object and image. His deconstructing and reconstructing of natural material, allows us to contemplate it in a fresh and often meditative way. We see the rough surface against the smoothness of the artist’s touch and in some way this allows the viewer to reconnect again with our environment. Says Flay, “In all my works there is a physical process of breaking and putting back together. The language of geometry references architecture as a healing and rebuilding process. The faceting of stone is a slow and meditative reductive process that expresses the relationship between matter and time.”