MICHAEL CUSACK Steel Frames and Figureheads
MICHAEL CUSACK Steel Frames and Figureheads
8 October – 28 November 2021
The Image of an Object is an Object as well Caity Reynolds
Does frames refer to form, constitution, or structure in general? Or to a particular state, as of the mind? In the sentence, If you don’t like it coloured in, you can always xerox it and see it all gray — what is it? What does coloured in mean?” Excerpt from “A Test of Poetry” Charles Bernstein, 1997
A poem, when reduced to its essential components, is simply an arrangement of words. Through the alchemy of tens of thousands of years of establishing and revising language, this naked arrangement, when read, whether intentional or not, seemingly becomes cloaked in meaning. The words themselves transform from arbitrary squiggles to symbols that express feelings, ideas, emotions. And due to the pre-established rules of language, it can appear as though there is a right way and wrong way, for words to be arranged. After all, they must mean something. The same could be said of painting. Like poetry, when laid bare, painting is comprised of simple elements: a surface, marks upon a surface and an arrangement of these two things. Beyond these prerequisites and prior to the advent of photography, some may have also viewed pictorial representation as an essential ingredient to the recipe of painting. In What is a Painting¹ Michael Polanyi tells us that when art is representing it is doing so in artifice. Paintings that are meant to look like a splinter of life are much the same as a “play representing action
or poems making statements.” They are pretend versions of some real thing and how well they pretend seems to give them their value. Is a painting merely a surface and its marks pretending to be something else?
they exist within. In these instances, we are encountering something that does not function as we believe it should, and in doing so, we are reminded of how we believe it ought to function.
This feels like an unsatisfying metric to measure a painting by. As though it is simply a sum of its parts and these parts, when undone, can be examined, scrutinised, understood. Are we to believe that this is the location of its meaning? Revealed through abject dismemberment and the pulling apart of the very arrangement of its basic elements?
Being confronted with ambiguity can be disquieting as it allows for multiple, unfixed and ever-changing readings. It is almost as though, these dismembered parts, whose meaning we were desperate to arrive at are showing us the crudeness and brutality in the act of undoing. Here, the rightness and wrongness of a poem or painting dissolves and we are left with something ineffable, undefined, complicated… corrupted.
Occasionally, these arrangements resist the system constructed to interpret them. They sidestep the tools and processes we use in our effort to discover their meaning. The words of a poem do not always fit comfortably within fixed literary boundaries nor can they be neatly compartmentalised through rigid definitions or the mechanics of language itself. Meaning becomes ambiguous. They must mean something after all and this ambiguity complicates our preconceptions of the very systems
¹ Polanyi, Michael. 1970. “What is a Painting?.” The American Scholar: 655–669. (p.664)
In Steel Frames and Figure Heads, Michael Cusack’s work resists the concept of painting that occupies popular imagination and turns towards this ineffable, undefined space. This exhibition presents works that are both their parts and their wholes and sometimes the absence of these things. Through material investigation the works in this exhibition reflect a tapestry of accumulated experiences both within the studio and distilled from everyday life.
These works demonstrate how painting, and art making more broadly, as an action and an outcome, can be a method of thinking. A captivating friction between painting (as an idea), the material qualities of the works, and the poetic potential for these materials is revealed. In “art terms” Cusack’s work occupies a nebulous territory referred to as expanded painting. Expanded painting is explained by Mark Titmarsh² “as a medium deepening itself through self-questioning. It questions itself at a formal level, challenging surface, colour and image… What is essential to painting? What can be removed or added to painting? Can paint be removed from painting?” The speculative and ambiguous nature of expanded painting provides a mode of introspection for both artist and viewer. An expanded painting can seemingly undo and dismember itself should it wish to. Ecru is the colour of unbleached linen, a material favoured historically by painters and this colour emerges throughout Steel Frames and Figure Heads. Like the skin of a drum, we find a round, exposed frame
² Titmarsh, Mark. 2017. Expanded Painting: Ontological Aesthetics and the Essence of Colour. Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 16
whose surface is marked by four numbers etched in blue and a fuzzy, bleeding blur of black that seems to almost vibrate. The ecru disk beneath is mottled and uneven and the origins of these stains are ambiguous in nature. Are they the result of the artists hand or was this uneven surface readymade like other works in the exhibition? The forms seem familiar but the arrangement of them appears foreign. Cusack provide us with more familiar touchstones throughout Steel Frames and Figure Heads. The ends of drawstrings are recognisable pockmarks on a vast surface, the shape and size of a painting. Our first impulse is to unearth, discover and figure out what this clearly disassembled length of fabric used to be. But in indulging this impulse we rob ourselves of the opportunity to simply look and be with the work, to consider more than the parts that make the whole. These works are thoughtful but not prescriptive. Though mindfully composed we are not told how or what to think of them. Each material begs further consideration and leaves room to ponder. By dismantling
the austere definition of painting as a canvas adorning a gallery wall, we are able to look to the limits of painting and consider what is beyond. This space is unknown. This space is ambiguous.
the spaces behind and between and the way a painting occupies the field of a gallery wall. This action seems disruptive and almost tautological as if saying that the image of an object is an object as well.
The multiplicities of meaning that exists in the unknown spaces of expanded painting encourage active rather than passive viewing. Works of art, whether painting or poem, whose meanings are neither explicit nor implicit present an argument for us to sit in the unknown and accept or even revel in the ambiguity. Expanded painting provides an opportunity for us to look at how painting functions, and consider what it might be if it did something else.
An artist, whether painter or poet, or architect of any other medium, becomes a steward for perceptual experience. Through the creation of their work, and the act of sharing their work, artists provide opportunities for us to examine inwardly and outwardly.
Cusack does precisely this when he introduces exotic materials or deploys uncommon methods when creating works. An old fire hose, ecru in colour, is transformed, its original function becoming a feint echo, as it takes its place in the exhibition as a ready-made object. While a painting constructed with two physical layers reveals what the conventions of a traditional flat painting conceal —
The history of painting is rich, turbulent and incomplete and while the works in Steel Frames and Figure Heads may not sit comfortably within classical definitions of painting, they do not reject them, rather they acknowledge them, they question them, they corrupt them. Steel Frames and Figure Heads is not only an investigation into painting but also a generous invitation for us to consider our relationships with the spaces that we occupy and the systems of thinking we participate in; it gives us permission to question our unyielding need to find meaning.
References Bernstein, Charles. “A Test of Poetry.” Sulfur 41 (1997): 35. Polanyi, Michael. “What is a Painting?.” The American Scholar (1970): 655-669. Titmarsh, Mark. Expanded Painting: Ontological Aesthetics and the Essence of Colour. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017. ––– Caity Reynolds is an independent curator, arts writer and researcher. caityreynolds.com
Size 3/4151
2021 found object 91 x 18.5 cm
Brandon Office Park
2021 found object size variable
Poem
2021 found object size variable
Atik
2021 found object 133 X 128 cm
Fold
2021 found object size variable
Sarraute
2021 mixed media on board 148 x 132 x 9 cm
Seaver
2021 mixed media on board 148 x 119 x 27.5 cm
previous spread
Greystones
2021 found object 120 x 190 cm
this spread
Echo’s Bones
2021 remade readymade, wood construction 38 x 27.5 x 14 cm
Pair
2021 found object 185 x 17.5 x 34 cm
Drawing Construction
2021 found object size variable
Tulsa
2021 mixed media on board 41 x 30.8 cm
Laid Bare
2021 found object 220 x 155 cm
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Michael Cusack emigrated to Australia in 1982 and currently lives and works in the Northern Rivers of New South Wales, Australia. He holds a Master of Visual Arts from Queensland College of Art, Griffith University. His work features in several major public and corporate collections including Artbank, BHP Billiton, Macquarie Bank, and in numerous public and private collections in Australia, Hong Kong, United Kingdom and Ireland. Michael Cusack is represented by Olsen Gallery, Sydney. michaelcusack.net.au
Michael would like to thank the staff at Lismore Regional Gallery — particularly Kezia Geddes and Sarah Harvey for their support. Thanks to Edward Blower for metalwork and James Arthur for woodwork. Thanks to Meredith Cusack for ongoing support, and Bridie and Louis for going to all the openings.
Published by Lismore Regional Gallery, 2021 A catalogue record for this work is available from the National Library of Australia ISBN: 978-0-6481226-6-1 Copyright for texts in this publication is held by the authors and texts may not be reproduced without the authors’ permission. No image in this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the copyright owner. Essay: Caity Reynolds Photography: Michelle Eabry Catalogue design: Rick Shearman | rangestudio.com Printed by Lismore City Printery Cover: Greystones (detail) 2021, found object, 120 x 190 cm Inside cover: Sarraute (detail) 2021, mixed media on board, 148 x 132 x 9 cm
11 Rural Street, Lismore 2480 NSW | T 61 2 6627 4600 | E art.gallery@lismore.nsw.gov.au | W lismoregallery.org