A three part exhibition by Paul Cooper and Brenden Gray at Gordart
by Robyn Sassen
By working day, Paul Cooper and Brenden Grey are colleagues who teach at a Design College. In the art gallery, they blend very different sensibilities in a body of work that is charming in its cheekiness, but moving in its subtlety. Their gordart show comprises separate and conjoined bodies of work.
There�s a provocative intimacy in how their work interfaces. The exhibition comprises three sections�one is Cooper�s, one is Gray�s and the third is handled collaboratively.
At first, Cooper�s work is alienating in its abstraction. But step a little closer and there are elements that will grab your attention, imagination and critical sensibilities. The work challenges the viewer�s ability to navigate space. Are these aerial reflections on a neighbourhood? Are they abstract negotiations around issues of comfort? It doesn�t really matter either way: as you look closer, there are words and numbers to trigger a sense of familiarity.
Minuscule plastic people are embedded in the surface of works like Crossing paths. They�re so small, they�re virtually unrecognisable until one is very close to the works. And then it�s clear; there�s a community quietly at play here.
Entitled �Territory�, this element of the show is mature and provocative. Working within and a little out of the academic traditions around formal art in formal galleries, Cooper offers a subtlety in approach and a sense of humour which is never obvious, but elegant in its articulation.
Walk further into the gallery, and there�s a series of tiny framed drawings in cross-hatched ink on paper. Entitled Sleepwalker, this work bemusedly captures a sequential story of an observed bench at Rhodes Park, Kensington. It plays into the notion of animation beautifully, and represents the transition from Cooper�s work to Gray�s.
In the gallery space on the right, billed �Stateless� is a body of mixed media drawings blending meticulous pen and wash, cross hatching and doodling with expansive painterly gestures. Compositionally these works are not always successful, but conceptually, they are enticing, marking Gray as someone to watch in terms of his developing profile on the art aware and gallery circuit. In his gallery statement, Gray openly describes the mindset behind these intense little images as �obsessive hermeticism�, characterising it all as the product of �intentional self-marginality from the contemporary art scene�.
The third element to the show, the collaborative one, offers an insight into both of these artists which blends humour with intensity and a maverick sense of subversion. They tell the viewer in the artist�s statement that for ��In the Same Boat�, this section of the exhibition, they�ve worked through Joseph Conrad�s Lord Jim (1900) in creating these works.
A classic European text, it reflects the story of one man�s fight against his own past, and his attempts to prove himself to the world after he has made one terrible error. It�s a story of questioning value systems and the stability of one�s position in society and these somewhat precious, but nevertheless nebulous drawings are far from literal illustrations.
Characteristic of both artists, ��In the Same Boat� explores technical idiosyncrasy, with colour and mark making. Physically small, these works are less about bold noise than intimate nuance, which demands a perspicacious eye. They also represent an affirming gesture toward literacy, which has become increasingly extinct in contemporary local expression: where the shock of everyday existence has erased much of the pleasure and wealth to be had in reading. This provocatively old-fashioned gesture, particularly from educators, might herald a turn of events in artists� directional inclinations.
On my way out, I confronted Cooper�s other series of paintings, positioned on the wall above the fireplace. Collectively entitled Surface details, this series of four is alluring and surprisingly evocative in its understated confrontation with sexuality. Nothing�s direct, lewd or crass. Adjectives, verbs and nouns are affixed to the surface of the paintings, in clinical little strips of paper: �Raw, sweat, burn, tingle, tear�, says one. �Arouse, soft, sticky, oozing�, says another. They�re about evocation, and in their gentleness and depth, are sexy.
A synchronous installation resolved the show in entirety for me, though. And this had probably little to do with the artists� decisions. Through the glass doors on the right side of the gallery, on the way out, I noticed an installation on the veranda, which resonated powerfully with the works within. It was a piece from a previous show mounted by gordart and comprising a circle of Yoruba-evocative masks by Guy du Toit. With open mouths they silently glared at one another across the radii of the circle. On stands giving them a uniform and respectable kind of height, they felt to me like a community: the kind of people both Cooper and Gray have alluded to in their works.
Closed: 21 May
Gordart at the Thompson Gallery
78 Third Ave, Melville, Johannesburg
Tel: (011) 726 3519
Email: gordart@hotmail.com
Website: www.gordart@art.co.za
Hours: Wed - Sat 10.30 - 6pm
