eugene carchesio, cosmic theory
For Eugene Carchesio this has been a successful year. In July, he had a major retrospective at The University of Queensland Art Gallery, and in September his work went up on the walls of the Queensland Art Gallery, as one of three Australian representatives at the fourth Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art. Currently exhibiting at Sellas Gallery, in part collaboration with artist Gareth Donnelly, is Carchesio's latest show. Consistent with his previous work, 'Cosmic Theory' demonstrates, once again, the poignant relationship between art and language.
The exhibition consists of two parts: to the right as you enter the gallery are the works of 'Cosmic Theory', and to the left, Carchesio's collaboration with Donnelly. As with his previous exhibitions, the works are arranged in close proximity to one another around the gallery walls. Unfurling like the pages of a codex, each work lends itself to the next, gradually revealing a kind of idiosyncratic text. Yet as you walk around the space, you get the distinct feeling that their meaning is not merely limited to their inscriptions. Rather, what interests Carchesio is that which is beyond the immediacy of language, that is, the body of history that incorporates it and makes it meaningful. For instance, there is no disparity between the formal structures of a geometric shape other than the stippled surface of Carchesio's watercolour works on paper. In fact, this is seen across the breadth of his work from his matchbox collages to his leaf paintings. They are all equivalent and interchangeable, operating, as it where, on the level of the signifier, whose meaning is contingent upon the syntactical relationship between the form of the object and its materiality. However, since