Kieran Boland

Homework (2010)

Drawing Series. Pencil, Indian ink, Copic Ink and Gouache on paper. Each 100 x 66cm (2009 - 10)

Included in the group exhibition Like No Place Known
for the inaugural International DRAWING OUT Festival.
RMIT University School of Art Gallery​ 7.4.10 - 16.4.10

A little girl stands between two oversized audio speakers, its levels could be marked by the horizontal lines of the page they appear on. Another boy with dynamite and a trip wire suggests a potential battle zone for the future of learning after a 'field trip' to visit the grand old lady of minimalist painting, Agnes Martin. Maybe it's mischievous to think of her work as a clean slate but for many generations, progress at school was invariably measured through the parallel line or grid template of an exercise book. The journey towards knowledge requires the "destruction" of any resemblance it may have had to minimalism—as a readymade object unworthy of a child's attention.

These oversized "homework" drawings may bring to mind the recurrent nightmare of finding oneself back at school, or even suggest their author/artist was a moronic overgrown child confined to a 'special' school. Alternatively, the viewer may legitimately question whether such dramatic changes in scale (as a widespread artistic strategy) are an essentially infantile, attention seeking device.

Artists:
Kieran BOLAND (Australia)
Cecilia DARLE (Sweden)
Gunilla HANSSON (Sweden)
Patrick NILSSON (Sweden)
Jin SHAN (China)
Andreas SOMA (Sweden / Norway)

Curated by Katarina FRANK
and Peter WESTWOOD

Catalogue Essay (Excerpt)