Unknown Sitter DOS

3rd to 20th July 2013

This group exhibition combines painting, installation and sculpture to explore various anonymities of the portrait. Playing with ambiguity, these works call into question the meaning of ‘non-identity’ in portraiture that comes about perhaps as the result of a suspicion of its true intention or as a consequence of a disguised or even rootless origin.

Focusing on the tangible and three-dimensional aspects of the portrait as it unfolds towards a disarrangement of its theme, the sitters become subject to question. Habit and recognition fade, at times through the ability of the skill which manipulates or moulds its three dimensional aspect, at other times when the subjects turn inward to perform something imagined or felt, or to view at their own self- reflective narcissism through playful painterly techniques or ghostly installation. ‘The Unknown Sitter DOS’ performs as the disk operating system, excavating body parts to reassemble them as a contemporary portraiture of unflattering and unsentimental figures which participate in the uncanny dislocation of their narratives.

Artists: Virginia Verran / Dallas Seitz / Galen Riley / Damien Meade / Cathy Lomax / Marcus Harvey / Kirsten Glass / David Dipré / Marianne Basualdo