Exhibits,

Antonia Sellbach This, That, Here, There, Yes, No, Maybe

Opening: Wednesday 11 November, 6-8pm Dates: 11 – 28 November 2015

Within the active field of each painting, box like zones are articulated. Line work such as bordering and edging carve into what was once an open field, implying territories- “This” is “Here” and “That” is “There”, yet the specificity, the (figurative) ‘content’ of “This” and “That” are constantly deferred. This connects the work to a kind of abstraction also occurring within thought and language. We use words such as “This” and “There” in much the same way as we use ‘boxes’ and ‘zones’ – as placeholders that can be both vague and certain. Whilst the paintings are definitive via delegation of zone and area, there is also a looming non-specificity that is key to the reading of the works. Fibrillating between most definitive marks (the order) and the vague or non-specific (content), the surface of the works become unstable domains, holding interesting links that might add to our understanding of abstraction, cognition and sensation (forms of abstract thought).

As we place one element next to the other, as we re-arrange or delegate what goes where, we are physically re-configuring a language of simple objects and symbols. This, That, There, Here, Yes, No, Maybe, is a reductive pallet of thoughts that may be made visible, arranged and rearranged via much the same process as would be applied to an abstract puzzle or game.

“One can say that the concept of a game is a concept with blurred edges… Is it even always an advantage to replace a picture that is not sharp by one that is? Isn’t one that isn’t sharp often just what we need?” (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations).

Antonia Sellbach is currently undertaking a PhD via UNSW (Dr Marie Sierra) and UTAS (Stephen Loo) that explores the connections between Wittgenstein’s concept of Language Games and Contemporary Abstraction. Sellbach has shown at galleries such as C3, Sawtooth ARI, Sutton Project Space, BUS and Counihan Gallery, with a recent a solo exhibition at Daine Singer. She is co founder of LISTEN a feminist web project that seeks to publish works regarding the visibility of women in Australia’s musical underground and plays in the bands Beaches and Love of Diagrams.

http://www.antoniasellbach.com