John Hurrell – 9 July, 2009

Flush irony down the dunny and listen: André Hemer is not usually a ‘real bad painter’; he normally is a very good one. But this is a dreadful installation. No doubt about it.

The reasons are formal. The visual dynamic of parallel striped lines placed on a large wall (the optical rush they create) kills any paintings hung there - even if some reflexively refer to their own installation. They are impossible to look at with such a backdrop. It creates nausea.

Hemer nevertheless has some good works here: those that are round or oval and without any parallel lines. You can enjoy the pool of masked painted or negative shapes that he likes to repeat: the slashing stroke lines or flicked on masked drips. The way the different complicated elements all interweave and lock in together. Hemer is very good at that - at making painted objects that intrigue.

His awful hang reminds me of Judy Millar’s first installation in a New Gallery show curated by Robert Leonard. Some of the massive paintings were the best works she has ever made, but the installation - with the partially painted walls behind them - was appalling. However for her the show was part of a learning process of how to jump from making discrete paintings to making installations that lash out at architecture. There was a logic that gradually came to reveal itself - even though she still straddles both sensibilities. But she got a lot better at subverting interior space.

Maybe this exhibition is transitional for Hemer. That he is heading in a particular direction, searching for an as yet unarticulated discovery. As his title says: a story to be unfolded in real time.

John Hurrell

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