shane forrest 2019
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essays
A glimpse into 25 years of studio practice is encapsulated in Shane Forrest’s new show at Rogue Pop Up Gallery in Newtown. In this review show, past supports present and present echoes past and works become uncoupled from the actual time of production, existing in a relationship of the artists making. This is most evident if Forrest’s themes are identified and then compared. Forrest has¬¬¬ been working with ‘the street’ since the early 1980’s. The ephemeral, the discarded, the unremarkable and the evidence of entropy in our daily lives are reoccurring themes in his work. He makes 2D and 3D works informed by his local environment, both the inhabitants, as well as the landscape. He is attracted to representing, in small sculptural maquettes, the sometimes unusual and surprising shapes made by people with their accessories as they move through the environment. An interest in the Sydney obsession with real estate is a theme for both painting and small sculptural explosions. Forrest produces his work with mainly reclaimed materials. Old palettes, worn out brushes, reclaimed paper and cardboard, failed or discarded canvases thrown out into the street. His practices are historically connected to the Nouveaux Realists (1960 -1963) and Raymond Hains’ particular “affichist” conceptual concern for engaging with the unspectacular. From a series called “Consumer Robusta”, the material choice to work on large slabs of reclaimed street posters speak of an abiding interest and concern for urban voices as heard on flyers, posters, brochures and other ephemeral notices. These poster slabs provide messages that Forrest mines like an archaeologist, uncovering forgotten snippets in the cacophony of voices. A de-gloving of the handy work of the popular and the mundane as he carves new images into the poster surfaces using a scalpel. In the series ‘Porous Suburb’, Forrest uses the voluminous, ubiquitous, letterbox clogging advertising generated to promote the Sydney obsession with real estate, as stimulus. This property transfer industry has created an intense image-making machine with its own codified, visual and verbal systems, turning bricks and mortar into inadequacy and desire. The result is that a young, vibrant, creative population, essential in their presence, are largely disassociated from ownership of hyped-up dream homes. The paintings are a metaphor for the now unattainable dream of home ownership by the very residents who make a suburb a desirable. To make each work he first completes three to four meticulously painted scenes on paper. The imagery is taken from the real estate promotions that stuff his letterbox. These scenes are then ripped and reassembled into collages that become a view of all three layers at once. The resulting layered compositions simultaneously hide and reveal, allowing a view through closed doors. Private residences peeled back, the eye and imagination travelling through ruptured facades. The property, so tantalizingly depicted in the original photographs, is now doubly unattainable. Disrupted representation of dwellings, no longer ‘perfect’, offered for sale, their layers torn, hint at all not being well as Forrest subjects these utopian visions to entropic forces. In recent sculptural works, Forrest asks questions about failures. Failure of surface, failure to protect, failure to be contained. Some masses are moth eaten, some are collapsing, seams burst, edges fray. A veneer of control soon succumbs; protective layers are ruptured. They are proposals that playfully engage with folly, time and entropy. No one is a shiny winner; no one loses either. Nervously balanced between apexes, the longer lasting mid ground is explored, after shiny and new and before derelict and useless, hovering nervously in realms of deterioration. A mid-range of battered, tatty, worn and revealed. Frozen on the threshold of explosion, are a series of sculptural paper works Forrest has titled ‘Gifts’. These ‘explosions’ are the latest direction for Forrest. They are a collision of plenty and entropy. Are the ‘Gifts’ erupting in delight or something more sinister? Torn in frustration or a voyeur’s peek into interior layers? As Forrest states about his small unassuming sculpture titled Caution, “Is this work about an intimate interest in entropic forces and the struggle to maintain order, or do I just like thinks that go bang?”
Dr Jane Naylor
Images :Estate Finalisation 2014 610mm x 510mm reclaimed paper and canvas, acrylic paint Aldi at 4am 2016 720mm x 400mm x 400mm Aldi brochures, reclaimed wood, varnishBrief Bio:Completed Masters of Art at the College of Fine Art, UNSW in 1995. Consistently exhibiting since 1981.Teaching Japanese and Visual Arts at Dulwich Hill High School of Visual Arts and Design. Most recently represent by A-Space on Cleveland until closed in 2012.Solo shows in Australia and Japan. Represented in private and institutional collections.
Images :Estate Finalisation 2014 610mm x 510mm reclaimed paper and canvas, acrylic paint Aldi at 4am 2016 720mm x 400mm x 400mm Aldi brochures, reclaimed wood, varnishBrief Bio:Completed Masters of Art at the College of Fine Art, UNSW in 1995. Consistently exhibiting since 1981.Teaching Japanese and Visual Arts at Dulwich Hill High School of Visual Arts and Design. Most recently represent by A-Space on Cleveland until closed in 2012.Solo shows in Australia and Japan. Represented in private and institutional collections.
catalogue
2D WORKS POSTER WORKS Cleave 2008 960 x 740 street poster $900Filter 005 620 x 620 street poster $380Joan's men 2000 1120 x 770 acrylic paint on street poster $900Nest 2007 320 x 320 street poster $380Screen 2008 1620 x 500 street poster $500Bleached 1998 2400 x 1200 acrylic paint on street poster $2,200Duel Dual 2008 700 x 600 acrylic paint and collage on street posters $700Hunted 2008 700 x 600 acrylic paint and collage on street posters$700OPEN HOUSESAdjoining Properties 2006 720 x 600 acrylic paint, collage on paper $1,100In ground pool 2006 S720 x 600 acrylic paint, collage on paper $1,100Delightful Brick Veneer 2006 720 x 600 acrylic paint, collage on paper $1,100Renovators Delight 2006 540 x 260 acrylic paint, collage on paper $430Solar heating 2006 540 x 260 acrylic paint, collage on paper $430Incision 2008 220 x 160 Gouache on shopping brochures on mount-board $330Meat Tray Won 2008 160 x 220 Gouache on shopping brochures on mount-board $330The Tenant 2008 220x 160 Gouache on wall paper and shopping brochures on mount-board $330Semi- detached 2006 100 x 90 x 50 acrylic paint, wallpaper, reclaimed cardboard $2000POROUS SUBURB A Canvas to Create 2011 500 x 600 acrylic paint on reclaimed arches paper/ canvas $750Boasting Modern and Refreshing interiors 2013 1220 x 605 acrylic paint on reclaimed arches paper/ canvas $1600Freshly Painted Throughout 2014 760 x 380 acrylic paint on reclaimed arches paper/canvas $850
3D WORKSURBAN FIGURESJigsaw 2013 510 x 280 x 140 acrylic paint on reclaimed wood $450Launch 2013 430 x 280 x 120 acrylic paint on reclaimed wood $350Turning 2013 250 x 270 x 140 acrylic paint on reclaimed wood $450Scurry 2014 510 x 300 x 140 acrylic paint on reclaimed wood $350Survey 2013 430 x 280 x 120 acrylic paint on reclaimed wood $350EXPLOSIONSAldi at 4am 2016 720 x 400 x 400 Aldi brochures, acrylic paint on reclaimed paper/cardboard/ wood $600Caution 2016 380 x 160 x 140 acrylic paint on reclaimed paper/cardboard/ wood $450Defence 2018 510 x 400 x 180 acrylic paint on reclaimed cardboard / wood $500En Garde 2018 600 x 550 x 300 acrylic paint on reclaimed cardboard /wood $600Open House 2015 660 x 430 x 280 real estate brochures, acrylic paint on reclaimed paper/cardboard/ wood $ 500Past Present_2014_520 x 230 x 220 acrylic paint on reclaimed paper/cardboard/ wood. $500GIFTSGift 1 2010 360 x 300 x 90 acrylic paint on reclaimed paper/cardboard $350Gift 2 2010 330 x 230 x 90 acrylic paint on reclaimed paper/cardboard $300Gift 3 2010 400 x 280 x 70 acrylic paint on reclaimed paper/ cardboard $350CORRUPTIONSCower Tower 2019 700 x 600 x 500 acrylic paint on reclaimed arches paper/ cardboard $1000Happy Landing 2018 440 x 400 x 380 acrylic paint on reclaimed cardboard $500Remnant 2 2018 400 x 220 x 100 acrylic paint on reclaimed cardboard $350Safe 2018 230 x 210 x 160 acrylic paint on reclaimed cardboard $350Cornered 2018 340 x 250 x 170 acrylic paint on reclaimed cardboard $350More cornered 2018 330 x 170 x 140 acrylic paint on reclaimed cardboard $300Silo 2019 480 x 150 diameter acrylic paint on reclaimed cardboard $300
All artist's profits are donated to The Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy is a global environmental nonprofit working to create a world where people and nature can thrive. Founded at its grassroots in the United States in 1951, The Nature Conservancy has grown to become one of the most effective and wide-reaching environmental organizations in the world. Thanks to more than a million members and the dedicated efforts of our diverse staff and more than 400 scientists, we impact conservation in 72 countries across six continents. Our Priorities:- We are focusing on these key areas in order to achieve our ambitious mission. Tackle Climate Change Protect Land & Water Provide Food & Water Sustainably Build Healthy Cities