CONCURRENT - DAVID ROBINSON & DANIELLE SWIFT
A final pairing to complete the Concurrent circuit is this stunning presentation of Danielle Swift and David Robinsons's haunting figurative works. These works also looked spectacular in close proximity to Angela Grossmann, Gabryel Harrison and Joaquin Perdrero's works. You have one more day to see the show as it closes at the end of the day on May 3rd.
David Robinson
In concrete, wax, iron, steel, glass - no matter the substance; in that studio-bound practice wherein time, thought and matter are coaxed into singular coexistence, Danielle Swift is unwavering in her will to risk all at every moment; she pushes her work constantly to the point of breaking.
At
such extremity of practice it is no accident then that the motifs of
fragmentation and brokenness have become the signature and beauty-mark of her
artworks. Their fissured, displaced and heaving material surfaces
are testament to the fact that this artist can countenance no polished
falsehood nor affectation to survive the creative procedure. What’s more,
without their brokenness we would not be witness to the artist’s mending
vision: the restorative matrix of work and thought by which these fragments dream
of being whole.
As
well as their broken beauty, I admire the works of Danielle Swift as, over the
last half-decade, I have seen first-hand the sheer ferocity of purpose, work
and ethic that has brought them into being. In the punishing
physical and cognitive work of their creation it is no mere figure of speech to
say that these sculptures are made of blood, sweat, and tears; indeed, further
forensic analysis would reveal trace-elements of good wine, cheap tobacco, high
art and deep laughter.
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| Memoria III, David Robinson, bronze, steel, cement, 12 x 6 x 6", 2011 |
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Danielle Swift
By emphasising aesthetics and symbolic representation, Swift makes work that generates diverse meanings and a complex web of concepts relating to human existence.
By emphasising aesthetics and symbolic representation, Swift makes work that generates diverse meanings and a complex web of concepts relating to human existence.
Multilayered images arise in which the
fragility and instability of our seemingly certain reality is questioned. The
viewer is often confronted by a world of juxtaposition and duality,
disconnection and fragmentation. Moments are depicted that only exist to
punctuate the human drama in order to clarify our existence and to find poetic
meaning in the human condition.
Her works often touch on the inability of
verbal communication to visualise reality, the attempt of dialogue, the
dissonance between form and content and the dysfunctions of language.
Transformed into art, language becomes an ornament. At that moment, ambiguity
and indistinctness, which are inherent to the phenomenon, come to the surface.
The pieces occasionally radiate a cold and
latent violence. Often, a disconcerting beauty emerges. The inherent visual
seductiveness, along with the conciseness of the exhibitions, further
complicates the reception of their manifold layers of meaning. By investigating
the association between verbal and visual language, Swift develops forms that
do not follow logical criteria, but are based only on subjective associations
and formal parallels, which incite the viewer to make new personal
associations.
Her works question the conditions of appearance
of an image in the context of contemporary visual culture in which images,
representations and ideas normally function. Danielle Swift currently lives and
works in Vancouver.
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