Artistic Program CCAS Manuka

Image ALEX ASCH The Legacy of Forgetfulness, 2021 Photographic collage printed on Dibond, painted plywood and graphite anti-grip powder, 82 x 168cm Photo Brenton McGeachie

23 July - 19 December 2021 Audience: 1682

Patricia (Pat) Hoffie AM is a Queensland based artist born in Scotland 1953. Trained as a painter, her practice includes a range of media including installation, assemblage and sculpture. Since her first solo exhibition in Brisbane in 1974, she has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally. She has engaged in residencies across the Asia-Pacific region as well as in Europe, and has worked collaboratively with artist communities including, and especially, those in the Philippines. She has also worked on projects and exhibitions that include Australia’s changing role in the AsiaPacific region; on Art and Human Rights; on the changing nature of land and place; and on the effects of globalisation on local cultural production exhibitions, both in Australia and overseas. For many decades she has worked as an academic and writer and regular contributor to national arts journals and contemporary art debate and development. Pat has held positions on a number of leading national boards and committees including the Australia Council for the Arts, Asialink, the National Association of the Visual Arts, the Institute of Modern Art, the Australian Flying Arts School and the Queensland Artworkers Alliance.

Alex Asch was born in Boston, Massachusetts, USA and was involved in university art programs in Los Angeles and New York before moving to Australia and studying art at the Australian National University in 1988. He has exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions throughout Australia and provides technical assistance to a number of arts organisations around Canberra. In 2017, Alex recieved the Fellowship Award by the Capital Arts Patrons Organisation (CAPO) and was the recipient of the Workplace Research Associates Award by CAPO in 2015. Alex’s work has been collected by the National Gallery of Australia and is also included in the collections of Artbank, ACT Legislative Assembly and Canberra Museum and Gallery as well as corporate collections in Australia, USA, UK and Netherlands. In 2020, Alex worked as an art mentor and tutor for Regeneration an arts organisation working with local bushfireaffected communities.

Timeline saw a steady decline in audience numbers following extended lockdowns across Australia and a general reluctance among regular visitors to venture out as the highly contagious Delta and Omicron variants of COVID-19 spread throughout ACT communities over a period of six months. Bad weather during this time also impacted upon audiences creating a perfect storm.

Image PAT HOFFIE The Earthquake, 2019-20 Watercolour and gouache on architectural drafting paper, 220 x 300cm

Photo Brenton McGeachie

Timeline featured artists who have a distinguished track record of artistic achievement. Most importantly it was an exhibition that reflects the uncertain times we live in while drawing upon the artists personal histories of struggle with politics and social upheaval over periods of thirty to forty years. Despite their experience artists at this stage of their careers often find it difficult to secure exhibition opportunities and Timeline went some of the way in drawing attention to the struggle experienced by practitioners in terms of sustainable careers as well as personal views.

It was Pat Hoffie’s Countdown to Midnight Series (2020) shown at Fireworks Gallery in Brisbane (February/March 2021) that drew my attention to notions of time being a constant thematic in many an artists’ practices. Seven prints, reminiscent of travel posters with banner headlines, proclaim ‘TOMORROW’ in dominating white text that has not quite registered. Each ‘countdown’ variously addresses a contemporaneous sense of unbridled economic growth based on the exploitation of human and environmental resources, and the consequences: degradation, destruction, disaster, death and ultimately extinction. Countdown to Midnight is a series of bleak expressionistic water colour and gouache paintings printed, ironically, on glossy paper that intensifies the saccharine colours used to convey a sense of questionable commercial design for the promotion of a dubious destination. The ‘queasy’ pastels of a pre-teen bedroom clash to assault their audience with an apocalyptic vision of the future that is quite simply a legacy of its past. Hoffie’s TOMORROW, is today.

Alongside this sequence were paintings from the Clusterfkk series including I am scared. I stand up (2020) with its title borrowed from Colin McCahon’s pronouncement of existential anxiety followed by a decisive declaration of fortitude and faith, Scared (1976). Clusterfkk responds to the idea of the epic, a form that since Breughel and perhaps before, used the events of the time to spotlight the folly of humanity with an occasional glimmer of hope.

Alex Asch, gave new purpose to Time Life photography annuals he had discovered, worn, damaged and discarded. From 1936 Time Inc. dominated global publishing for sixty-five years covering politics, science, environment, technology, and entertainment. Humanist values were sometimes expressed through iconic photographs that situated photojournalism and portraiture at the forefront of a communications revolution that would inundate the global masses (albeit) with a distinctly American brand of humanitarian philosophy. Asch notes, “Although I was five years old in 1970, I always think of myself as a child of the 60s. I remember this time in black and white: the outstretched arms pointing over the balcony after King’s assassination; the Vietnamese girl running crying, covered in napalm burns; the dead student bleeding at Kent State. These searing images that showed America’s descent into madness were always in black and white. This dystopian kaleidoscope seemed to point towards our future.”

Image ALEX ASCH The man through his industry poisons his son, 2021 Photographic collage printed on Dibond, painted plywood and graphite anti-grip powder, 82 x 330cm

Photo Brenton McGeachie

Image PAT HOFFIE I am scared, I stand up, 2019-20 Watercolour and gouache on architectural drafting paper, 220 x 300cm

Photo Brenton McGeachie

Drawing upon a personal romance with the past Asch’s ‘assemblages’ were sourced from Time Life Annuals of the 1960s and 70s, re-presented as fragments of images that reflect upon how we arrived at today. The juxtapositions were variously disturbing, mundane, stylish, mysterious and powerful, reflecting the eclectic layouts of variety magazines. Celebrating the seminal socio-political role of photography during the 1970s, as well as its craft and quality, Asch’s reconstructed black and white worlds discharge a volley of recent history into our present. Like Hoffie’s prints they represent a perplexing composite of times past, present and future.

Only a short time ago ‘timeline’ referred to the graphical representation of a period of time, for example Curricula vitae and artists’ retrospectives were timelines. With the advent of social media, however, the terminology finds itself in an expanding universe that incorporates a list of posts created and shared on social media such as Twitter, Instagram TikTok or Facebook. Generally visible from a profile page, personal timelines are widely accessible and might reveal considerable amounts of personal information, such as locations and encounters, that would otherwise not be public. While Hoffie and Asch are active on platforms like Instagram and Facebook they are of a generation that uses such devices with restraint. Their work in this exhibition, however, reveals a timeline of passionately held views and values, evident in the ways they interpret their present as a legacy of the past, which in turn frames the future.

Timeline brought together and presented the work of two highly skilled artists with who have developed major bodies of work in recent years. Both artists have experimented with materials creating specific hybrid media to produce works that reach similar conclusions regarding the state of the planet and how this impacts upon humanity. Asch takes influential photographs from the past to produce uncomfortable collages that reflect the present and envisage the future. He also introduced elements of painting in tones of grey and sculptural framing to highlight the stark monochromatic environment he created. While Ash’s works are solid and didactic, Hoffie works with fragile architects tracing paper and watercolours. Constructed from panels Hoffie’s works overwhelm with size and a sense of frenetic activity. The characters that occupy her canvas (humanity) are foolish greedy and destructive. They have not learned from the past and repeat their mistakes. Reviews and comments around Timeline note how successfully the exhibition reflects the times we live in, a bleak vision of past, present and future that offers only glimmers of hope.

Image NIGEL DOBSON Soviet Banner, 2020 Aerosol and ink on canvas, 180 x 120cm

Photo courtesy of the Artist