There have been a lot of prominent deaths lately.
Lemmy, Bowie, Glenn Frey, Paul Kantner, cultural icons some of us older
folks have grown up with. There will certainly be more. Who’s next?
Keith Richards seems to have some kind of exemption.
Dylan maybe? Most people in their seventies are bound to wonder when
and where old Grim will appear. It’s the elephant in the room.
Which may seem like a downbeat way of introducing
two enjoyable shows, Ty Danylchuk and Jason Balaam at Polychrome and
another, ‘hide in plain sight’ at Deluge Contemporary Art. Apart from being duos the
shows have no obvious connections to each other.
Ty Danylchuk works with found objects and collage.
This puts him in line of descent from artists like Schwitters and
Rauschenberg but with his own original twist. He doesn’t like
statements. The collage series are Fifties imagery against
a graffiti-like background. There are tobacco pipes with smoke-like
bushy tails. Duchamp comes to mind. Shawn Shepherd saw them in Ty’s
studio and encouraged him to show them.
 |
| Ty Danylchuk |
Jason Balaam is more forthcoming. Paintings on his
website are full of colour and movement. He talks about intoxication,
delirium. He even has the words tattooed on his head. But he has gone
through a major transformation recently. His
hair has grown back and the work at Polychrome Fine Art is more restrained,
monochrome…. it appears minimal from a distance but it contains complex
textural variations.
 |
| Jason Balaam |
In his statement he talks about youthful psychedelic experiences and his feelings about exuberance and colour….
‘Years of handling all that chaotic colour through
pattern has given me the eyes to see colours within the white and the
ability to imbue these serene white surfaces with some of that old magic
chaos.’
It’s a lively and inventive show. Danylchuk and
Balaam have years of experimentation ahead of them. Neither of them
appears to be running out of time.
Over at Deluge Contemporary Art where James Lindsay
and Lance Austin Olsen, two of Victoria’s senior artists, are having a show
the mood is more contemplative. The title, hide in plain sight, is apt.
The work is introspective and personal but
public at the same time.
 |
| James Lindsay |
 |
| Lance Austin Olsen |
Lindsay is from Scotland, Olsen from England, but
curiously, there are no references to shared history, no bagpipes, no
coronation mugs, not even a hint of Stonehenge.
Perhaps after living so many years on the West
Coast they have detached themselves from their antecedents and been
absorbed into the prevailing ethos, but it’s still possible to make out
residual traces. James Lindsay has maintained an
uncompromising revolutionary position from his Chinatown loft. Lance
Austin Olsen likewise is fiercely skeptical of those in power whilst striving
for inner stillness in James Bay. There is a dialectic element in much
of Lindsay’s work and a distrust of language
in Olsen’s which makes for interesting juxtaposition and commonalities.
“The exhibition is the result of the independent
investigations of each while operating as a kind of interrogatory of
each other.” Deluge Contemporary Art.
This show is both timely and moving. As we age the
material world becomes less and less important. Only spirit matters.
Both Lindsay and Olsen are approaching the end of their respective
journeys of discovery. There’s nothing morbid or
gloomy about this show but there is an invisible presence. Both artists
must think about death occasionally. Is it an end or a new beginning?
Should we rage or go gently into the good night? These are questions
all of us have to come to terms with sooner
or later.
The Polychrome Fine Art show runs until Feb. 4th.. " hide in plain sight " is at Deluge Contemporary Art until Feb. 27th.
