Internal Audit
Gian Manik
9 February — 17 March, 2018
The Honeymoon Suite
L1, 60 Sydney Rd.
Brunswick Victoria Australia
Internal Audit
An internal audit
suggests a state of consciousness that isn’t fixed. It is a process that
requires reflecting on the past while in the present with a perspective that is
focused on the future. This reflection on a passage of time often considers a
way to progress that is not necessarily pre-determined; instead the direction
to take is gradually revealed along the way.
This reflection
on a passage of time is evident in Gian Manik’s solo exhibition. Considered
gestures stand out as suggestions of his previous work, paired with moves that
are much more sporadic and fragmented. This is not necessarily a departure for
Gian’s painting practice, but through an increasingly experimental approach a
loosening has occurred.
His painting
practice has been preoccupied with the ways in which vibration can be
represented. He employs images of mirrored and reflective surfaces as a device
to draw from, to create liminal spaces in his paintings that skew a singular
reference point. The reflective surfaces cause light and colour to refract,
creating unpredictable compositions that distort perception and seem to
oscillate between reality and abstraction. Internal Audit takes these
preoccupations further, to consider positive and negative space, posterity and
erasure, and excess and restraint.
In the main
gallery one canvas covers the entire length of the largest wall. Untitled
2017-2018 began as a collaborative work with students from Hedlands Senior High
School during a residency in the Pilbara region that was initiated by FORM
Gallery, Perth, in early 2017. The large piece of canvas was unravelled on the
floor only a couple of metres at a time. Gian and the students worked on small
sections of the canvas without a sense of orientation, perspective or scale.
Students were asked to respond to the natural landscape of the Pilbara region,
provoking both literal and abstract interpretations of the surrounding
landscape and fauna, though the painting had no intended narrative. Gian
continued to work on this painting once it arrived in Melbourne. Gestures and
text continue to populate the canvas and yet it is not clear when they were
added. The evolution of the canvas carries the previous marks with it, becoming
something in between a contemporary painting and a cumulative palimpsest.
In the adjoining
office gallery a layered composition of fabrics cover an entire wall with
painted gestures that are both loose and controlled. The fabrics are conjoined
but also disjointed, intentionally constructed to drape over each other as
individual pieces that are also part of a larger whole. Gian’s usual method is
to mark a raw canvas, however in this instance the fabric support requires a
reversed approach to representation, whereby the composition of the fabrics
dictate the structure of each painting.
Charlotte Cornish
~
Gian Manik holds
a Master of Fine Arts from Monash University, Melbourne, 2012, and
a Bachelor of Arts, Visual Art (Honours) from Curtin University of
Technology, Perth, 2007. Selected solo exhibitions have included What’s
your name. It’s a symbol. Don’t talk., FORM Gallery, Perth, 2017; Leather
Seats, Fort Delta, Melbourne, 2016; Ventilation and Natural Light,
Artereal, Sydney, 2015; First Outside, Inside Last,Caves, Melbourne,
2015; Umbrella, Anna Pappas, Melbourne, 2015; Foils, Utopian Slumps,
Melbourne, 2014; Big Recorder, ALASKA Projects, Sydney, 2013; The
Retreat to Representation, Venn Gallery, Perth, 2012. Selected group
exhibitions include Painting, More Painting, ACCA, Melbourne, 2016; Farewell to Function, Gian Manik and Koji Ryui,
Twenty Thirty Seven, Curated by Consuelo Cavaniglia, Sydney, 2015; Y3K
Biennale, curated by Christopher LG Hill, Margaret Lawrence Gallery,
Melbourne, 2014; Fresh Paint, Sutton Project Space, Melbourne, 2012.
He was awarded the Gunnery Prize from Artspace, Sydney, in 2009 and was a
finalist in the Joondalup Art Award also in 2009. His work is held the public
collections of Artbank and The Art Gallery of Western Australia and various
private collections in Australia and internationally.
Photos by André Piguet
Photos by André Piguet