More than meets the eye
Stephen Baxter, Eugene Carchesio, Rosalie Gascoigne, Robert Klippel, Mervyn Muhling, Bruce Reynolds, Madonna Staunton, Rodolphe Blois, Luke Jaaniste, Alice Lang, Kathryn McSherry and Cerae Mitchell
Carpet, wood, matchboxes, sticky tape, old wallpaper,tin trays-any of these things could be found around the house or in the garage. While using found objects has been a part of artistic practice since Picasso stuck chair caning onto a painting, it is worth reflecting on how genuinely odd the transformation is from quotidian object to art, and how difficult the ever-present question 'What is art?' remains. 'Transformers', curated by QUT Art Museum curatorial intern Simone Jones, aims to revisit these perplexing questions by juxtaposing established artists represented in the art museum's collection with work by local emerging artists.
In one sense 'Transformers' is a show based on the relationships between the works by the collected artists and those of the emerging artists. It serves both to contextualise the emerging artists' work and also to emphasise certain elements of the established artists' practice. While the use of found materials questions the notion of originality, so do the obvious relationships between the artists-not just the emerging artists' relationships to the collection, as apparent in Rodolphe Blois's and Merv Muhling's mutual use of natural objects such as sticks, but also in the similarities between the collected works themselves, such as the assemblages of Madonna Staunton and Rosalie Gascoigne.
Several Untitled works by Eugene Carchesio use matchboxes as a starting point. Employing cardboard cylinders, cones and rectangles, the artist has created miniature constructions, a play on the so-called building blocks of form. Each of these unique works is inseparable from its matchbox, harking back to childhood treasures kept safe in cotton wool. Where Carchesio creates works that reference art history in a matchbox, in Reference Cerae Mitchell inverts this approach, with a museological display