ANALOGUE ART IN A DIGITAL WORLD - Magda Cebokli
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ANALOGUE
ART
IN A
DIGITAL
WORLD
3
MONIKA BEHRENS SAM LEACH
NATASHA BIENIEK TONY LLOYD
CHRIS BOND AMANDA MARBURG
ANDREW BROWNE VIV MILLER
MAGDA CEBOKLI JAN NELSON
SIMON FINN BECC ORSZÁG
JUAN FORD DAVID RALPH
STEPHEN HALEY DATSUN TRAN
MICHELLE HAMER DARREN WARDLE
KATE JUST ALICE WORMALD
2 1
FOREWORD
The accomplished artists in this exhibition celebrate artists involved in this exhibition including high profile alumni
all that is good about our sometimes problematic even jarring from RMIT School of Art. RMIT Gallery is proud to celebrate
digitised lives. their professional achievements.
Analogue Art in a Digital World illustrates how We also warmly thank RMIT alumni Sam Leach and
contemporary artists are using traditional techniques including Tony Lloyd for working with us over several years to bring this
painting, tapestry and knitting alongside technology to create project to fruition. We are appreciative of their dedication to
art works that engage or are influenced by digital visual culture. contemporary art in Melbourne as both artists and curators.
When asked, the artists in this exhibition readily admit I would like to acknowledge the staff at RMIT Gallery whose
to using digital tools in their defiantly analogue works of art. ability to make our shows appear effortless are very much
These include iPhones, iPads, tablets, projectors or a software appreciated: Nick Devlin and his team of installers; Evelyn
program. For example, artist and co-curator, Tony Lloyd Tsitas, Senior Communications and Outreach; Jon Buckingham,
recently stated that Photoshop could be the most important Collections Coordinator; Maria Stolnik, Gallery Operations
tool of the contemporary painter and that all his preliminary Coordinator; Meg Taylor, Exhibitions Assistant; Gallery
sketches are done on computer. As a viewer of art, and one Assistants: Sophie Ellis, Vidhi Vidhi and Thao Nguyen; and
perhaps wary of the ways digital is impacting on culture, I find our core of volunteers: Celeste Astorino, Nicole Ganker and
this revelation fascinating. Veronica Pang.
Painting was my gateway into art. Regular visits to Finally we thank: Professor Calum Drummond, DVC
major galleries were a part of my childhood. The reward was a Research and Innovation and Vice-President; Professor Paul
postcard of an important painting to take home and decorate Gough, PVC and Vice President, College of Design and Social
my bedroom. There is something deep about our connection Context; Jane Holt, Executive Director, Research Office,
to painting. My postcard selections still resonate in my mind. Research and Innovation whose combined on-going support
This exhibition celebrates the reinvigoration of art making and has enabled our program to flourish in 2018.
the new boundaries of representational genres. Helen Rayment
RMIT Gallery maintains an active interest in artists who Acting Director
can provide new insights into the present and we thank all the
2 3
DIGITAL ACCENT
The invention of photography 180 years ago did not mark Their works are all carefully planned in advance. The
the beginning of the end for figurative painting and drawing, artists have an analytical approach to their source imagery which
and none of the subsequent advances in mechanical and digital is reflected in their nuanced compositions and application
reproduction have dissuaded artists from picking up a pencil of media. Hand-eye coordination is a key aspect of the work;
or a brush. the images are constructed from intentional and articulate
Despite the invention of easier and more accurate means marks. The art is simultaneously seductive and cerebral, cool
of picture making, figurative painting and drawing persist as yet emotionally engaging. The physical surfaces are generally
compelling forms of visual communication. The analogue artist smooth or regular and physically alluring. There is a critical
in the age of digital reproduction has new tools and resources concern with the optical effect of the art; the works are mostly
to draw on; high definition photography, image editing software, high contrast and have an optical intensity which is engaging
and the myriad of images provisioned by the internet are from a range of distances. The works all reproduce well attesting
necessary studio utilities. These digital assets are a boon for to the artist’s awareness that the work of art in the age of digital
painting and drawing but prolonged exposure to screens has reproduction is made to be digitally reproduced. These artists
changed the way we think about images and over the past have an innate understanding that all art is fundamentally
twenty years, analogue art has acquired a digital accent. rhetorical, i.e. every image is in dialogue with every other image
Analogue artists are consciously and unconsciously from Lascaux to Instagram.
incorporating digital aesthetics into their artworks; screen-like It is important to note that many of these artists also
smoothness, pixilation, high resolution clarity, the depiction make digital art in parallel to their analogue practice. They are
of artefacts and glitches are all emergent properties of not apologists for traditional media, nor are they uncritical of
contemporary representational art. Post-digital age artworks the new digital order. These artists construct sophisticated and
reveal to us in their construction many of the subtle influences intelligent images and they utilise technology astutely in the
that digital technology is having on our perception and service of making their art.
interpretation of the world. Tony Lloyd
The artists in this exhibition work in a diverse range of
styles and practices however they have key aspects in common.
4 5
ATTENTION ECONOMICS practitioner, these components of a work can provoke, engage
and antagonise a viewer.
There is no digital divide, and this is a show about it. Whitney Davis observed that certain paintings could be
Digital is a broad term, used interchangeably with the done on a computer, and that whether or not a computer was
internet, or to mean information encoded in binary form, made used in the production of the work is a “circumstantial fact”2. In
with a computer or made with an electronic recording device. principle, with a sufficiently complex robot or printing system,
We live in a time suffused by the digital in all of its meanings. there need be no shade of nuance in the physical object that
Whether something is made with a computer or not, the maker makes it definitively analogue. Being able to accurately render
lives in a digital world and their output contains traces of the something isn’t nearly enough to make an artwork compelling.
digital. Humans evolved using tools and our consciousness is Nobody needs to paint a picture or use their hands to make
shaped by them1 and working with digital tools is shaping our any sort of image. Not in the way that we need to breathe or
consciousness. All paintings made now are part of the digital drink. Skill is a valuable commodity and there is a delight in the
world. appreciation of a skillfully made work, but skill alone is boring.
The artists in this show are aware of the historical context The salient point is that paintings made now, and the artworks in
in which they work, both in terms of shifts in culture towards the this show, could not have been made without the digital.
digital, and their location in art history. When a painter picks up a One of the significant cultural developments of the
brush they lift a millennium of western art even though it weighs digital age is the emergence of attention economics. When a
as little as a stick with some hairs attached. product is given free, attention becomes the commodity. In a
Fetishizing the surface of a painting is a limited way to museum, the time the artist has spent making the work is given
understand the significance of analogue work. The surfaces like a gift to the viewer. It has long been observed that visitors
of the paintings in this show are generally smooth, traces of to museums do not linger in front of a work. Painters are well
brushwork, stitching or mark making are present but are subtle attuned to the transient relationship between viewer and image.
rather than deployed as exaggerated flourish. But analogue works This may be why the artists in this show feel at home making and
have many layers that function simultaneously and in relation to presenting work in the digital age.
each other. The brush work interacts with the composition and Sam Leach
the image. Colour choices are subtle and inflected by scale and
1 Lewis, J. (2006), Cortical Networks Related to Human Use of Tools,
context. The Neuroscientist, Vol 12, Issue 3, pp. 211 – 231.
An analogue image is always perfectly sharp, to a 2 Davis, W. (2006), How to Make Analogies in a Digital Age, October,
molecular level, even when it is blurry. In the hands of a skilled no. 117, (Massachusetts: MIT Press, Summer 2006).
6 7
Monika Behrens Pronk 1, 2017 oil on canvas 168 x 198 cm 8
Natasha Bieniek Biophilia, 2015 oil on dibond 9 x 9 cm 10 11
Chris Bond 704.949133, 2016 oil on canvas, fabric, paper, card 25 x 21 x 4 cm 12
Andrew Browne Untitled #4 (In between days), 2016 oil on linen 191 x 127 cm 14
Magda Cebokli Probability Monochrome #4, 2010 acrylic on canvas 91.5 x 85.5 cm 16
Simon Finn Steady State Disruption, 2015 charcoal on paper 70 x 120 cm 18
Juan Ford Rocket Surgery, 2010 oil on linen 76 x 61 cm 20
Stephen Haley Worry World Town, 2017 oil on linen 120 x 120 cm 22
Michelle Hamer Work what you got, 2011 mixed yarn on perforated plastic 51 x 68 cm 24
Kate Just Feminist Fan #37 (Zanele Muholi, Somnyama Ngonyama Series: Zinathi I, Johannesburg. 2015), 2017 hand knitted wool and acrylic yarns 50 x 36 cm 26
Sam Leach Glove with Sectioned Finger, 2018 oil on linen 101 x 76 cm 28
Tony Lloyd Mass Movement, 2018 oil on linen 61 x 121 cm 30
Amanda Marburg Darcy, 2018 oil on board 38.5 x 49.5 cm 32
Viv Miller Cave and moon, 2015 oil, enamel and pencil on canvas 140 x 130 cm 34
Jan Nelson Black River Running #10, 2018 oil on linen 75 x 61 cm 36
Becc Ország The Source of All Things (Birth of the Rivers), 2016 graphite pencil and 24kt gold leaf on 600gsm Fabriano watercolour paper 105 x 76 cm 38
David Ralph Open Heart, 2018 oil on canvas 170 x 150 cm 40
Datsun Tran Heroes on the Frontier, 2018 oil on board 75 x 300 cm 42
Darren Wardle Monument, 2017 oil and acrylic on linen 220 x 170 cm 44
Alice Wormald Hanging Moon, 2017 oil and acrylic on linen 104 x 83 cm 46
LIST OF Chris Bond Andrew Browne Simon Finn Rocket Surgery, 2010 Put Yourself In A Feminist Fan #18 Sam Leach
Welcome Stranger, Fall #3, 2017 Rotation Clockwise, oil on linen Better Place, 2011 (Yoko Ono, Cut Piece, Leonov Sliced, 2018
WORKS 2016 oil on linen
oil on linen 2016 76 x 61 cm mixed yarn on 1965), 2016
Monika Behrens oil on canvas, paper 240 x 173 cm charcoal on paper The Seldon Robinson perforated plastic hand knitted wool 101 x 76 cm
Echo II, 2016 and card 85 x 150 cm Collection, Melbourne 82 x 104.5 cm and acrylic yarns Glove with Sectioned
Untitled #4
oil on canvas 17 x 11 x 1 cm Work What You Got, 46 x 36 cm Finger, 2018
(In between days), Steady State Stephen Haley
122 x 102 cm 704.949133, 2016 2016 Disruption, 2015 2011 Courtesy of the artist oil on linen
Worry World Town,
Echo III, 2017 oil on canvas, paper oil on linen charcoal on paper hand stitching Feminist Fan 101 x 76 cm
2017
oil on canvas and card 191 x 127 cm 70 x 120 cm and mixed yarn on #36 (Robert Courtesy of the artist
oil on linen
122 x 102 cm 25 x 21 x 4 cm perforated plastic Mapplethorpe’s and Sullivan+Strumpf,
Ghostly, 2014 Steady State 120 x 120 cm
Gretel, 2016 oil on linen Expiration, 2015 51 x 68 cm photographic portrait Sydney
Pronk I, 2017 Products and
oil on canvas oil on canvas and 210 x 140 cm charcoal on paper Courtesy of the artist of Louise Bourgeois Tony Lloyd
Producers, 2018
168 x 198 cm calico Courtesy of the artist 70 x 120 cm 1982, printed 1991), K2 with jet and tracks,
acrylic on linen Kate Just
17 x 10 x 2 cm and Tolarno Galleries, Courtesy of the artist 2017 2017
Courtesy of the artist 81 x 81 cm Feminist Fan #10
LE VITT-FROM Melbourne and MARS Gallery, hand knitted wool oil on linen
and Martin Browne Windows and Walls, (Cindy Sherman,
ASHES, 2016 Melbourne and acrylic yarns 120 x 240 cm
Contemporary, Sydney Magda Cebokli Untitled Film Still #6,
2018 46 x 36 cm
oil on canvas, fabric, Probability Juan Ford 1977), 2015 Mass Movement,
Natasha Bieniek acrylic on linen Collection of
paper and card Monochrome: Degenerator, 2013 hand knitted wool 2018
Biopod 2, 2018 81 x 81 cm Jo Christopoulos,
31 x 27 x 3 cm A State of Certainty, oil on linen and acrylic yarns oil on linen
oil on dibond Courtesy of the artist Melbourne
The Restless Dead, 2013 180 x 240 cm 46 x 36 cm 61 x 121 cm
14 x 9 cm and MARS Gallery, Feminist Fan #37
2016 acrylic on canvas Purchased through the Melbourne Feminist Fan #13 Courtesy of the artist
Biophilia, 2015 oil on canvas and 101.5 x 122 cm (Zanele Muholi,
RMIT Art Fund, 2014 (Valie Export, Action and MARS Gallery,
oil on dibond calico Michelle Hamer Somnyama Melbourne
Probability RMIT University Art Pants, Genital Panic,
9 x 9 cm 18 x 10 x 1 cm Collection Give Up Your Day Job, Ngonyama
Monochrome: 1969), 2015 Series: Zinathi I,
Courtesy of the Accession no: 2009 hand knitted wool
Courtesy of the artist, Eclipse, 2012 Johannesburg. 2015),
artist and THIS IS NO THIS IS NO FANTASY, RMIT.2014.1 hand stitching and acrylic yarns
FANTASY, Melbourne acrylic on canvas and mixed yarn on 2017
Melbourne and Darren 101.5 x 122 cm Chlorophilia, 2010 50 x 36 cm
and Jan Murphy Knight Gallery, Sydney perforated plastic hand knitted wool
Gallery, Brisbane oil on linen Feminist Fan #15
Probability 55 x 136 cm and acrylic yarns
91 x 74 cm (Claude Cahun, Self
Julien, 2014 Monochrome #4, 46 x 36 cm
Courtesy of the Is This Your New Portrait, 1927), 2015
oil on dibond 2010 Home, 2011 Private Collection,
artist and THIS IS NO hand knitted wool
9 x 9 cm acrylic on canvas hand stitching Melbourne
FANTASY, Melbourne and acrylic yarns
The Seldon Robinson 91.5 x 85.5 cm and mixed yarn on 46 x 36 cm
Collection, Melbourne Courtesy of the artist perforated plastic
82 x 104.5 cm
48 49Amanda Marburg Becc Ország David Ralph Alice Wormald ANALOGUE ART Acting Director & Senior Exhibition Coordinator:
Audrey, 2018 Fragmentation Open Heart, 2018 Dry Garden, 2017 Helen Rayment
oil on board of mind (be still/ oil on canvas oil on linen
IN A DIGITAL WORLD
Senior Advisor Communications & Outreach:
38.5 x 49.5 cm withdraw), 2017 170 x 150 cm 88 x 73 cm Evelyn Tsitas
graphite pencil and Curated by Sam Leach and Tony Lloyd Exhibition Installation Coordinator: Nick Devlin
Darcy, 2018 Eclipse, 2018 Hanging Moon, 2017
oil on board 24kt gold leaf on oil on canvas oil and acrylic on RMIT Gallery Installation Technicians : Fergus Binns,
38.5 x 49.5 cm 600gsm Fabriano 72 x 63 cm linen December 7 2018 – January 19 2019 Beau Emmett, Ford Larman, Simone Tops
watercolour paper 104 x 83 cm
The Seldon Robinson Courtesy of the artist Acknowledgements Collections Coordinator: Jon Buckingham
75 x 52 cm
Collection, Melbourne and Gallery 9, Sydney Courtesy of the artist Special thanks to the curators Sam Leach and Collections Assistant: Ellie Collins
Hope (align yourself and Daine Singer, Tony Lloyd for their insight and commitment
Viv Miller Gallery Operations Coordinator: Maria Stolnik
with me), 2017 Datsun Tran Melbourne to the exhibition. Warm thanks to the artists
Cave Entry, 2015 graphite pencil and Heroes on the and their representatives for their ongoing Gallery Assistants: Sophie Ellis, Thao Nguyen,
oil on canvas 24kt gold leaf on Frontier, 2018 support. Meg Taylor, Vidhi Vidhi
120 x 100 cm 600gsm Fabriano oil on board RMIT Gallery Interns & Volunteers: Celeste Astorino,
Appreciative thanks also to RMIT University Nicole Ganker, Veronica Pang (Communications)
Cave and Moon, 2015 watercolour paper 75 x 300 cm
and colleagues, particularly: Professor Calum
oil, enamel and pencil 75 x 52 cm Courtesy of the artist RMIT Gallery / RMIT University
Drummond, DVC R&I; Professor Paul Gough,
on canvas The Source of All PVC DSC; Jane Holt, Executive Director www.rmitgallery.com
140 x 130 cm Darren Wardle 344 Swanston Street, Melbourne Victoria 3000
Things (Birth of the R & I; Professor Julian Goddard, Dean School
Monument, 2017 Tel: +61 3 9925 1717 Fax: +61 3 9925 1738
Courtesy of the Rivers), 2016 of Art.
artist and Neon Parc,
oil and acrylic on Email: rmit.gallery@rmit.edu.au
graphite pencil and
Melbourne linen Curators thanks: We’d like to thank Helen
24kt gold leaf on Gallery hours: Monday–Friday 11–5, Thursday 11–7
220 x 170 cm Rayment and Evelyn Tsitas for giving us
600gsm Fabriano Saturday 12–5.
Jan Nelson the opportunity to develop this exhibition
watercolour paper Secrets Travel, 2017 Closed Sundays & public holidays. Free admission.
Black River Running for RMIT Gallery and all the staff at RMIT
105 x 76 cm oil and acrylic on Lift access available.
#10, 2018 Gallery in particular, Nick Devlin, for his
Courtesy of the artist linen Catalogue published by RMIT Gallery
oil on linen installation expertise. We would also like
137 x 244 cm October 2018, Edition 200
75 x 61 cm to thank the artists who contributed to the
Courtesy of the ISBN: 978 06484 226 0 0
Courtesy of the artist concept of the show through conversation
artist and THIS IS NO and correspondence, not all of whom could Graphic design: Dianna Wells Design
and Anna Schwartz FANTASY, Melbourne
be included in this exhibition. Lastly our Catalogue editors: Helen Rayment / Evelyn Tsitas
Gallery, Melbourne
profound gratitude to the exhibiting artists. Catalogue photography: Images provided by the
artists, Amanda Marburg image courtesy of Sutton
The idea of an exhibition that highlights
Gallery, Melbourne.
the intelligence of painting and drawing is
Printed in Australia by Bambra Press
something we have been discussing for over
10 years and it is with great satisfaction that
we are able to bring these artists together in
this context.
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