The Space Between

THE SPACE BETWEEN
An exploration of parameters of illusional space

A collaboration between textile designer BARBARA ROGERS and painter HELEN REDMOND, The Space Between looks at the complicity, dissonance and illusion that exists in the slippage between surfaces: between the viewer and the frame, between light and shadow, between real and imagined.

The title of the exhibition throws weight behind the capacity of the unseen to shift our perceptions of space, light and time. The space that draws our eye to the actual or imaginary space beyond the periphery. Here is space that asserts abstraction over materiality and poetics over utility.

Taking a subliminal architectural framework as their starting point, the two artists explore spatial parameters by parallel but distinctly independent means.

The Space Between is an ephemeral, liminal journey through spaces both real and illusional. Embracing the Zen concept of silent space, the viewer is invited to reflect on the primacy of the interval, the pause and the place of ambiguous time.

THE ARTISTS:
Textile designer BARBARA ROGERS has gained international acclaim for her innovative work using shibori, an ancient Japanese resist dye technique. The lure of creating textiles as an independent art form was a natural progression for Rogers who originally trained in fashion design at the National Art School. Working primarily on silks her process is essentially a reductive one, using clamped-resist carved boards with traditional arashi (pole wrapped) techniques to discharge dyes from the fabrics. The cloth is then overdyed in other colours to produce highly complex designs. The juxtaposition of colour and transparency alternately hide or reveal the layers behind, adding tension and weight to both the ‘negative’ space between dyed and undyed areas in each panel, including the vacant airspace created between the separate layers. The multiple layers of Rogers’ large-scale installations meld to dissolve the spaces between, creating a new and ethereal visual interaction.

HELEN REDMOND’s paintings explore the response of space to light; the way light reacts to people, objects and spaces in the built environment. A graduate of the National Art School, Helen’s painting practice draws deeply on her experience as a design editor and interiors stylist. In these temporal memories of abstract space, vision is guided by light from the concrete to the nuanced or imagined space that exists beyond the confines of the canvas, questioning our perceptions of space and time. The layered applications of oil paint and translucent glazes give immersive depth, adding patina and veils of colour that accrete and compress time and memory into the surface. The quietly evocative images mediate between abstract space and silent space: the compelling void.

Both artists view their parallel references to architectural structure as subliminal rather than literal. Barbara’s father was a Sydney architect, and his indirect influence informs the urban geometry of her work. For Helen, ‘chasing the light’ with professional photographers to capture the space of architectural interiors forged her aesthetic. Her engagement with space is both metaphysical and concrete.

Opening Saturday 10 April 2021, 3 – 5pm

Hours: Wednesday – Sunday 11 – 5pm, or by appointment.