Survey 15: Relics and Rituals

There has been in recent Art a return to narrative content through realism, which allows a direct empathy with the actions or objects as well as the symbols in the artist’s work. It is this direct communication of the narrative meaning through objects or images with the source or techniques involved in their creation that is the connecting link in this exhibition.
This content is established by relics – totemic objects that impart information about their original or implied context, environment or civilisation, as well as their creator and rituals – events and performances which provide often through a direct empathy with the performer an understanding of an alternative set of attitudes or beliefs about Man and his environment.
In rejecting the cool intellectual stance of the Art of the previous decade which relied on its attached philosophies and concepts about the nature of Art the new narrative realism has created a new expressive Romanticism. This new Romanticism relies on the experience and personal myth making of the artist rather than a quest after philosophical Universals. It tends to have an intuitive or emotional base; in painting a reliance on expressive brushwork showing the marks of the artist; in sculpture a feeling for hand-made objects, either assembled ritually from found objects or crafted with traditional techniques using low technology materials. In this exhibition many of the objects and images have an implied tribal or anthropological origin. It is the power and simplicity of communication which is inherent in totemic objects, archetypal images and tribal rituals, that the artist hopes will cut through the habits of contemporary sophisticated forms of communication. It is a return to fundamentals, the simple realities of life that through magic and mystification may evoke archetypal responses and emotions.””

Featuring work by Tom Arthur, Warren Breninger, Peter Cole, Peter Cripps, John Davis, Kevin Mortensen, Jill Orr, Ewa Pachucka, Mike Parr, David Ryan, Stelarc, Peter Taylor, Stephen Turpie, Ken Unsworth, Hossein Valamanesh.

Sourced from: Survey 15 exh. Cat. P.1