Paul Edmunds at João Ferreira
by Tavish McIntosh
On entering João Ferreira, a sense of emptied out space is striking. The harshness of the gallery's white walls make Edmunds' unobtrusive artworks seem like moments of respite and visual relief. That is until one's attention is fully engaged and a reverberating energy starts to emit from each piece. Paul Edmunds' new show, entitled 'Phenomenon', engages in a formalist visual language that recalls both the psychedelic tendencies within Op Art and the austerity of Minimalist design - without any of the weightiness of that Modernist ideology.
Shapes and patterns get repeated throughout the exhibition, forming a coherent aesthetic that resonates with the gallery space. Edmunds' work is not, however, solely engaged in creating design and pattern, instead it is the human intervention in the abstract and industrial that becomes the focus of the exhibition. The show draws its inspiration from naturally occurring patterns and effects, transporting these into media and environments that are wholly urban, almost industrial. In this removal, the artist's process gets recorded in a distillation of effects and the slippages of perfection within each artwork.
Minimalist design is traditionally tied to an ascetic and controlled visual language, desirous of the negation of the corporeal presence. The logic of the machine is paramount and the role of the artist is reduced to a minimum. Edmunds is involved in a painstaking refutation of the absolutist logic and rationality that forms the basis of that Modernist ideology. The consistent abstract design of the pieces on exhibition evokes the refined, minimalist aesthetic; however, a closer engagement reveals their increasingly illogical and nonsensical predilection. Where Bridget Riley (working within the Op Art movement) would control the patterns within the artwork in order to reach the logical conclusion - that of optical illusion and never-ending, reverberating rhythm - Edmunds' work refuses to be fixed by this simplistic goal.
The work Sieve is demonstrative of this propensity: light and colour are filtered through layers of carefully cutout paper creating a highly unsettling effect. The work sometimes seems to reverberate and swim before one's eyes. However just as a pattern or a coherent rhythm seems to be emerging - it disappears, to remain lost in the unfathomable logic behind the piece. Edmunds plays with our expectations, enticing the viewer to seek the lucidity of the measured effect.
Sight combines with smell and touch to create an experience that enriches the dialogue between the sensual and the intellectual. In Plume, a polypropylene piece, the wafting odour of plastic enhances the impression of distilled industrial design. By involving the senses and the physical body, Edmunds makes one aware of the physicality of the object and of one's necessarily physical engagement with any artwork. Froth (a sculpture constructed from laser-cut pieces of advertising posters) alters substantially as one moves around it. By turns monochromatic and skeletal, then highly colourful and robust, the viewer's physical movement is necessary to appreciate the relationships of chaos and order, as symmetries resolve into patterns and then dissolve again. The viewer's engagement, vacillating between the overall effect and the microcosm of detail, mirrors the push and pull elucidated within the light and colour theories that Edmunds (and the artists of the formalist movements) exploit.
The Minimalist goal to remove the corporeal body is thwarted, through both the irrefutable physicality of the artwork and the pervasive evidence of the artist's manual engagement. Edmunds has become known for understated designs executed through fastidious manual industry, and this exhibition is no exception. The focus of intensely concentrated energy transforms these often mundane materials into testaments to human obsession, and renders the Minimalist ideology of the impersonal obsolete and, indeed, undesirable. Made from cheap, often disposable materials, the process of assembly and construction is where the artist's personality is faithfully recorded. The evidence of intensive manual labour on the minutest level invites the viewer to move closer. By going beyond the distilled Modernist aesthetic, the work becomes representative of a very human negotiation with the industrialised urban world.
Edmunds' intense focus on design and system makes the irrationality of the pieces and their lack of practical functionality disconcerting. The artworks are so harnessed to a rigid design aesthetic and put through such exacting practical labour, that their emergence as objects without any practical rationale is startling. And the anticipation of a grand raison d'etre entices the viewer to engage with the works creatively - much as a child would - mentally adapting and exploring them for some unexpected application. The implicit references to childhood construction sets (such as the popular Meccano) also reveal Edmunds' sly irreverence for the hallowed sphere of 'high art' and the accompanying ideology of disengaged aesthetic contemplation. A 'phenomenon' is a fact or occurrence that is perceived by the mind or senses, and Edmunds demands that viewers come to his pieces with both faculties. The onus is on the viewer to engage meaningfully with the exhibition.
The show's title, 'Phenomenon', is evocative of the experience of the natural environment. As expounded in the artist's statement, Edmunds draws on 'regular forms and processes' found within the everyday phenomena of 'light, surface and structure' and contrasts the evidence of natural systems with the distilled aesthetic of industria. Yet the work is not manifested as an impersonal industrial monolith, instead the pieces engage the viewer on an intimate and humanised level, remaining delicately poised in the balance between the human and inhuman, between scientific logic and intimate irrationality, between the abstract and the physical.
Opens: October 5
Closes: October 29
João Ferreira Gallery
80 Hout Street, Cape Town
Tel: (021) 423 5403
Fax: (021) 423 2136
Email: info@joaoferreiragallery.com
www.joaoferreiragallery.com
Hours: Tue - Fri 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 2pm
