By Conor Timothy O’Shea
Opening event – Feb 1 from 6pm
Feb 2, 3 12 – 5 pm.
For further information 3252 2552
Jugglers Art Space is pleased to present Conor Timothy O’Shea’s Impractical Enthusiasm. Conor is Brisbane based artist and works as an artist in residence at Jugglers “Shed” studio in Eagle Farm. He is currently studying a BFA at Queensland University of Technology. His most recent works featured at the Judith Wright Centre with In House ARI at the BARI Festival.
Working with painting, installation, sculpture, video and performance, Conor’s practice deals with a broad range of themes, processes and materials. While Conor’s sculptural installations physically address the viewers body and engage three-dimensional space, his paintings seem unconvinced that they warrant being shackled by the bonds of gravity and their rectangular limitations. The abstract works formally address the surface limitations with structural and considered geometric shapes and are then delivered into chaos with energetic gestural marks.
The formal qualities of painting are integral to the aesthetic experience; however the “meaning” of Conor’s abstraction comes from painting processes. Each work begins with a single layer of spray paint; the materials nature imperfectly covers the surface. These imperfections inform a number of gestural marks that map out the incidental patterns created by the spray paint. The abstracts are painted through an ongoing process of incidental and considered marks until it reaches a “moment of truth”, where the combination of marks becomes equitable. Creating tension between materials form a dominant theme underpinning Conor’s practice. He feels that these physical and material relationships create a situation that objectifies the human condition and is symbolic of the storytelling paradigm that pervades human understanding of the universe. Whether we create our own narratives or consume the prescribed rhetoric, they’re all stories, and all stories are works of fiction. Although the story might be rooted in facts, a player selects which to present and which to disregard.