The Divine Comedy opened at the VAG this week, a triad of artists: Francisco Goya, Buster Keaton and William Kentridge. We watched a video, Drawing the Passing, about William Kentridge, an animator/illustrator from South Africa who uses satire to explore current events, the idea of comedy vs conflict to illuminate.



He creates large scale charchoal drawings, but only about 20 per animation. He alters each drawing many times, by erasing and drawing over the images, so there are traces of the previous drawings left. Very evocative, expresses memory and impression so beautifully. His drawing practise was first a tool to develop oil painting, but then he turned to it as a means to express himself. Influenced by German Expressionism and Russian Constructivism.

Films
Stereoscope
Felix in Exile
Monument



Felix is a reocurring subject of Kentridge's films. often shown as a split between a naked male figure and a classic business man in suit. And ultimately, he is a self-portrait, as Kentridge uses himself, and a mirror, as a physical reference. He quotes Mikofsky "stroke the black cats and we'll wire the trams" (??) as a reference for the cat images in his work, and sees art "bridging the gap between what we see and what we know."

We went to see Charles Forsberg's exhibition of paintings today at the InterUrban art gallery. Large rectanglar canvases, oils worked in intuitive experimental landscapes of colour. I work with Charles at the VAG, he has informed ideas about the act of painting, and he references Gordon Smith. His work certainly reminds me of Jack Shadbolt, the way he shapes and mixes his colours, but without the representation.

Interestingly, Charles paints with his hands. He has chosen to eschew the brush, to free himself from its personality. He aspires to respond to the work as he goes along, mixing his colours directly on the canvas. The painting itself informs the process. And much is left to chance: by applying a layer of rabbit skin glue to before painting, he has prepared the canvas for his final manipulation. He tightens the canvas, and it cracks the paint. So it is really about experimentation, the paint, and the viewer is free to form their own associations with the work. They remain untitled, and they are not for sale. Charles does not want to be owned by a gallery, he does not want the concept of what sold to inform his painting, his exploration.