Sydney-born, London-based Australian artist David Noonan is one of those artists whose dedication to a particular series of work continues to elicit exciting results, even after many years of experimentation. For his latest “Untitled” exhibition at Roslyn Oxley 9 Gallery in Sydney, which is on show until April 25, Noonan has continued along the same trajectory that has won him critical claim in Australia and internationally, creating an exciting new series of his signature monochromatic silk-screen linen collages that represents an important development and extension of his singular practice.Taking his cues from found photographs of Japanese theatre performers and owls as well as Japanese Furoshiki textiles, Noonan has responded to his chosen source material with his usual ingenuity and elegance, employing a range of techniques such as cutting, folding, ripping, tearing, and layering that challenge and disrupt the uniformity and consistency of the picture surface, designating it as a site of great potential and fascination. The significant addition of trompe l'oeil effects adds yet another layer of complexity and intrigue to the works.Noonan has an impressive body of work to his name, yet his unique practice continues to defy definition or categorization. In this instance he has taken his practice even further beyond the reach of the canon of art history. Once again he has radically and authoritatively challenged the conventions of picture making by combining images of textiles with figurative images and juxtaposing physical and illusory interventions, in the process collapsing the figurative into the abstract and the physical into the virtual. His clever use of positive and negative space creates the illusion of depth. “People don’t know quite how to read them,” Noonan says of the works in the exhibition. And he’d be right. The uniqueness of his vision and sensibility generate works that evoke a real sense of mystery and awe.Unifying the works in the exhibition is Noonan’s experimentation with early Japanese Furoshiki textiles which are characterized by their abstract sashiko stitching (a Japanese word that translates to “little stabs”). In addition to superimposing images of the textiles onto the figurative images, in the larger works Noonan has actually physically recreated some of the characteristics of the textiles. “If there is a patch on the fabric, I recreate that patch. If there is a hole in the fabric, I make the hole. It is almost like using the logic of the textile to determine how the picture is pieced together,” Noonan explains.His fascination with Furoshiki textiles led to him actually collecting pieces for the show, specifically for each work. He sourced the textiles from a dealer in New York who deals with Japanese textiles and also searches for them at antique fabric fairs in London. In this show I really wanted to work the source material as opposed to just photographing them,” Noonan says. “I found them, purchased them, and photographed them. I am really obsessed with these, I find them absolutely stunning.”The stunning effects of Noonan’s techniques and processes are particularly evident in one of the larger works in the main gallery which features an image of a seated figure who Noonan has framed with the sashiko stitching of a Japanese Furoshiki textile. For the trompe l'oeil effect, Noonan hung one of the textiles on the wall and photographed it. He then incorporated the image into the work to create the illusion that the work itself is pinned up at all four corners.With the smaller works in the exhibition Noonan has drawn inspiration from the traditional use of Furoshiki textiles to wrap wedding gifts and created actual folds in the surface of the , sculptural “With the smaller works I wanted to work with scale,” says Noonan. I got smaller pieces of textiles and folded them like origami, photographed them, and then when I overlaid them onto the image I then physically collaged them as they were photographed. Again I used the formal aspects of the fabric,” he says.Key to the character and identity of this particular exhibition is Noonan’s diversion from his usual narrative-driven approach. Noonan’s past shows have featured images of theatrical scenarios, stage sets, makeup, transformation, gender transformation, as well as owls etc. For this exhibition Noonan has delved into his archive of found imagery and revisited the themes of Japanese theatre performers and owls, establishing the exhibition as a sort of mini survey of his work that testifies to the singularity of his practice and scope of his vision. The images themselves are both quiet and introspective as well as elegantly and subtly theatrical which establishes an atmosphere that is at once meditative yet also full of potential.In the tradition of his past shows, Noonan has once again ventured beyond the gallery walls and created an ideal environment for the works by carpeting the gallery space with a sisal material that resonates strongly with the texture and colour of his collages. His use of oak frames add to the continuity of material. According to Noonan, the sisal creates a completely different space in which you have a different bodily and acoustic relationship to the gallery. He negates the floor with the palette of the sisal which is very similar to the pictures. “It’s so interesting how the way in which a work is hung, how it is hung, and the kind of environment it is in is so critical to the way it is experienced, he says.The exhibition is also arranged in quite a particular way. Explaining the arrangement, Noonan says that he wanted to make three very specific rooms using the sisal fields, establishing the lobby and the small gallery as anti-chambers or bookends to the large main space. “In the large room I wanted one big piece per wall. I wanted there to be a lot of space so that you are really just looking at just one image. Each one I wanted to have a singularity so they are very different images but there is a commonality in the palette,” he says.Noonan began experimenting with linen and jute silkscreen collages in 2007, shortly after he moved to London. “I felt like there was this incredible wealth of images and information out there and by finding them and bringing them together in different scenarios I could create this new world for myself,” he recalls. Adding, “I have always been interested in getting away from the flatness of screen-printing and building back elements of surface.” Noonan says that he is always drawn back to the photographic imagery that form the basis of his work but explains that he really didn’t want to treat them as photographs as such. “For me it has been trying to find a way of using photographic material in a different way, in a way that has some of the satisfaction I might have found in looking at a painting,” he says.Central to Noonan’s unique aesthetic is his interest and the formal aspects of picture making and composition and the way materials affect the way the viewer experiences an artwork. In many ways he is a quintessential avant-gardist in the spirit of Postwar European artists such as Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni with whom he shares an interest in the materiality of the picture surface. “I have always been interested in getting away with the flatness of the screen printing and build back elements of surface,” he says. Adding, “you are dealing with ideas of abstraction and the figurative.” His use of both current and old fashioned processes to achieve his goal reflect his interest in the idea of not skewing technology to help make images.The maturity of Noonan’s practice and the ingenuity of his vision both contribute to the nature and experience of this exhibition. On the one hand the exhibition feels like of a museum retrospective for a senior artist. While on the other hand the uniqueness of Noonan’s aesthetic generates a strong sense of mystery and intrigue while at the same time evokes curiosity and wonder. One can only wait with bated breath to see in what direction he takes his practice next.Follow @ARTINFO_Aus
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