Nau mai, haere mai, welcome to EyeContact. You are invited to respond to reviews and contribute to discussion by registering to participate.

JH

Hi-Tech Installation

AA
View Discussion
Sarah Munro, Surface Detail at Gus Fisher. Photo: Sam Hartnett Sarah Munro, Surface Detail at Gus Fisher. Photo: Sam Hartnett Sarah Munro, Surface Detail at Gus Fisher. Photo: Sam Hartnett Sarah Munro, Surface Detail at Gus Fisher. Photo: Sam Hartnett Sarah Munro, Surface Detail at Gus Fisher. Photo: Sam Hartnett Sarah Munro, Surface Detail at Gus Fisher. Photo: Sam Hartnett Sarah Munro, Surface Detail at Gus Fisher. Photo: Sam Hartnett

On entering the room, your first instincts are to approach the lefthand corner, to stand between the two undulating and very reflective sculptures and study the impact of the white walls around them as they cloud the outside planes. The curved surfaces are tonally modulated so that dark grey merges into the large red form and white into the smaller grey one. The cross-sectioned squares are a hot red and piercing white respectively.

Auckland

 

Sarah Munro
Surface Detail

 

30 October - 15 December 2012

They look like distorted horns, two red and grey anamorphic pyramids that have been pushed over to one side - their tips cut off to leave squares in cross-section. Impeccably finished in their sprayed-on coats of hi-gloss lacquer, these strangely oblique, stretched out forms - flush on two adjacent walls in the smallest Gus Fisher gallery, and with windows in between - are the crucial ingredients of Sarah Munro’s unusual site specific installation.

On entering the room, your first instincts are to approach the lefthand corner, to stand between the two undulating and very reflective sculptures and study the impact of the white walls around them as they cloud the outside planes. The curved surfaces are tonally modulated so that shadowy dark grey merges into the large red form and snowy white into the smaller grey one. The cross-sectioned squares are a hot red and piercing white respectively.

The big crimson form slowly swings out away from the wall, while the grey sculpture - because it is fixed to a tilted plane that subtly angles out from the vector-line of the windows - swings back towards the wall. The angular streamlined shapes, that look a little like giant pen nibs, seem to reference art history and great speed, the end squares seeming to be new paintings that have tailing slip streams sprinting behind - referring to themselves as a innovative breed of painting.

Munro’s works are like crystals that have morphed out of racing cars, strange intrusive forms that have incongruously sprouted out of the Gus Fisher walls. They work best when you stand in a position near the windows that allows the mirrored architecture to dominate, smothering the crisp surfaces so that the gloss lets their masses lose their shape. That way the saturated colours are downplayed. We see dematerialisation via reflection.

John Hurrell

Print | Facebook | Twitter | Email

 

Recent Posts by John Hurrell

JH
Jae Hoon Lee, Mother and Child, 2024, inkjet on smooth pearl. 1500 x 1500 mm

Looking Through (or At) Jae Hoon Lee

IVAN ANTHONY GALLERY

Auckland

 

Jae Hoon Lee
Internal Landscape Part II


16 March 2024 -13 April 2024

JH
Outside installation of part of Shiraz Sadikeen's The Natural Rate, at Treadler. Photo: Alex North.

Sadikeen @ Treadler

TREADLER

Auckland


Shiraz Sadikeen
The Natural Rate


8 March 2024 - 23 March 2024

 

JH
Still from Marcus Coates, The Directors: Lucy (2022) Single channel HD video on loop, projection, 21 min, 24 sec--⁠presented at Yellow Brick Road, courtesy of Artangel.

Attempting to Describe the Experience of Psychosis

Te Tuhi /Auckland Arts Festival

5 inner city sites


Marcus Coates
The Directors


24 February - 24 March 2024

JH
Ava Seymour, Manhole, 2023, Maribu solvent screen-printing ink on aluminium, 1120 x 910 mm, unique.

Maternal Appurtenances

COASTAL SIGNS

Auckland

 

Ava Seymour
Heels of Mothers


14 March - 13 April 2024