CHRIS POLE Cross Over 13th March-30th March, 2019

CHRIS POLE Cross Over 13th March-30th March, 2019

Cross Over features a series of recent paintings by Chris Pole, consisting of both familiar, urban Auckland cityscapes and distant, isolated South Island landscapes.

Both bodies of work are treated in a similar fashion; the images are split in a diagonal direction with the two halves offset, disrupting the picture plain and creating a sense of upheaval, discord, and revelation. The interruptions point to both the fragility and ever-changing nature of both the land and city, and also serves to address the nature of painting itself.

As realistic depictions of ‘place’, the artworks are revealed as translations, for it is in the act of painting that the artist makes the choices and changes that shift the images from field recordings or documentation to something far more imaginative.

The thick trowelling of white oil paint in the areas absent of imagery further heightens this sense of falsehood, and allows us to think twice about the ways we perceive the world around us, from Dominion Road shop fronts to West Coast mountain passes.

View the exhibition here

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