Paul Hobard, Christian Lock, Loren Orsillo, and Jazmine Deng
Curated by Michael Newall
25 February – 1 April 2023
Read the catalogue essay here
Paint Thing… You Make My Heart Sing is the first exhibition at the new art gallery The Little Machine, a space for contemporary and experimental art. It draws attention to influences and affinities that have shaped abstract painting in Adelaide over three generations. Paul Hoban is an eminent Australian painter who, since the 1980s, has experimented with techniques and materials, explored paint as substance, object and representational vehicle, investigated the links between image and language, and developed a practice responding to philosophy, psychology and outsider art. The paintings and objects he creates are surprising, original and powerful. Christian Lock studied painting under Hoban at the University of SA, and makes paintings characterised by vast, sensuous, virtuoso brushwork. Lock’s work in Paint Thing…is a huge canvas titled Oceanic Anton, a tribute to the late Adelaide painter and sculptor Anton Hart, which extends and develops Hoban’s “paint skin” technique into a visionary maelstrom of pigment. Loren Orsillo, in turn, studied painting under Lock at the University of SA, developing a practice that interrogates paint, material, picture surface and wall, and integrates concrete, candles and plastic kitsch. She brings to play a serious attention to materials alongside a critical and sometimes sarcastic attitude to contemporary culture. Jasmine Deng, a recent graduate of Adelaide Central School of Art, developed her practice independently of the other artists in this show. But Deng’s work shows a striking affinity to theirs in terms of her fascination with paint, matter and materials, and her integration of painting into an “expanded field” of practice. She uses these means to develop elegant, disarming installations incorporating found objects, and imbued with frank, vivid elements of autobiography.
Paul Hoban and Christian Lock are represented by Greenaway Art Gallery
The Little Machine is supported by Renew Adelaide
