Penny Mason catalogue

And then...
Penny Mason
17 August - 14 September 2012
And then…
The exhibition And then… attempts to identify key points
in the trajectory of Penny Mason’s practice to show
how seemingly large jumps have emerged from almost
imperceptible shifts over time. Placed side by side, the
earliest and the most recent works in this show are vastly
different, yet the progression of work from Mason’s first
exhibition at the George Paton gallery in 1977 until today
suggests a more gradual change. David Sudmalis previously
noted how equivalent developments in music, particularly
ritualized expressions of time and space, have shaped key
aspects of Mason’s work. Originally accompanying the
exhibition Sets & Series (2006), Sudmalis’ catalogue essay,
‘From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail’,
will be reprinted for this exhibition. And then… explores
this unfolding development, looking for evidence of a
logical progression defined by a consistent sensibility. The
exhibition questions and defines the extent to which each
new development emerges from a sustained interest in the
material expressiveness of process-based making.
Penny Mason
Since graduating from the Tasmanian School of Art in
1970, Penny Mason has participated in group shows and
undertaken regular solo exhibitions. Recent solo exhibitions
include; Sets & Series at Sidespace Hobart and Excess at
the Academy Gallery, Launceston in 2006 and Vital Signs at
Poimena Gallery, Launceston in 2002. She participates in
an ongoing collaborative project with David Marsden and
Sue Henderson under the name art3 which presented Space
Antics at Burnie Regional Art Centre in 2011 and Swerve at
Carnegie Gallery, Hobart in 2012.
Penny Mason is represented in public and private collections
and is currently lecturer in Painting at the School of Visual
and Performing Arts, University of Tasmania, Launceston.
Cover details
Winter – Summer
2012
torn - wallpaper, cement tester x 2,
chalk, charcoal
dimensions variable
(collection of the artist)
Seriations (4th iteration)
2002 - 12
ink on paper
dimensions variable
(collection of the artist)
From the first clang of the rail to the last clang of the rail
Any person familiar with the plight of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn, 1963) will
recognise the penultimate phrase of Solzhenitsyn’s serialised testimony from which
this short essay takes its name. This phrase, totally demoralising in its context, compels
the reader to reflection as, all at once, the totality of the character’s experience on just
one day is amplified and applied to the three thousand, six hundred and fifty-three
other days of his Stalinist, formalist incarceration. The way in which Solzhenitsyn
describes this totality (predominantly through an investigation of minutia) has the
dual capacity to slowly reveal universal experiences and expectations in strangely
unfamiliar contexts whilst exploring the larger scale implications of even the
smallest events and decisions. It is the battle of the micro and the macro; structuralist
and deconstructionist (Gabardi, 2001); the relationship of the opposites; the
combinatoriality of complements (Forte, 1973).
In Sets & Series, Penny Mason likewise considers balance through the exploration
of dichotomies. From conception to completion, Mason’s works exist on several
planes concurrently, with each plane undergoing subtle transformation from one
state to another. This process, elsewhere described as gestural interplay (Sudmalis
2002, Brooks 1980), underpins one of Mason’s prime tenets – the conveying of
movement, energy and direction within what is essentially a static form. Movement
within the opus is at turns rapid and turgid, vertical and horizontal. Even the absence
of movement through the work finds reflection and synthesis in movement of
the spectator, as though energy and directionality suggested within the work is
transformed into actual action by the spectator.
Though pure illusion, this literal transcendence of stasis is indicative of the spectator’s
adoption of Mason’s idiom from suggestion to metamorphosis via an integration of
playful permutations (Adorno, 1970). Its success in doing so is dependant both on the
self-referential language and process articulated and communicated throughout by
Mason, as well as the instinctive reaction to something shared and universal by the
spectator. This reaction dwells in the instinctive knowledge that a ‘worldy preparation’
(Arnheim, 1993) or conscious process has been constructed and developed in order
to communicate something personal yet universal. The derivation and execution of
the physical act inherent in Mason’s work is translated to the viewer via the energy
and detail within every mark – it is, as Aristotle described, indicative of the inexorable
evolution from pleasure to contemplation (when ‘the sense is at its best and is active in
reference to an object that corresponds’ (Aristotle in Arnheim, 1993).
If this language that Mason has developed in Sets & Series indeed successfully
transcends a characteristic limitation of the form, some indication as to the role
of contemplation in the formation and creation of the work must be examined. It
is not enough for a thing to be a thing – the essence of the thing must be present
from conceptual genesis (Watts, 1958). In this case, without affirming or denying the
work, Mason’s act of creation gives action to contemplation through ritual - and
embodied within this ritual is another dichotomy.
The precision of etching, scribing, daubing and physically imprinting is perhaps
indicative of the calm and unhurried meticulousness that is characteristic of
contemplative ritual. Bordering on offering, the ritual of process-driven creation
(Reich, 1968) involves a knowledge or expectation of the self, a routine of
making, and a public celebration (De Carvalho, 1993). The exhibition of the
works is the final step in the ritualistic process, where effectively, the solitude of
preparation and the evolution of methodology composed for the act of creation
are consummated. The connectedness of the different stages of the creative
ritual becomes evident in a contemporary discourse between the artist’s history,
biography and persona and the spectator’s own range of experience, mediated
by the work (Briggs, 1993). This intertextuality of experience (provided we accept
the notion of experience as text) reinforces the universal origins of Mason’s work:
being solitary within a community, and differentiating truth (or reality) from
illusion.
The opposing face of meticulous preparation is the admittance of chance.
Small, but entirely noticeable, inconsistencies of colouration, texture and clarity
pervade the repetition of Sets & Series. Through repetition and ritual, Mason
admits the aleatoric nature of the subconscious – far from completed precision,
the results reflect a more real, earthly approach (in the same way that perfection
in composition was a goal never to be attained by the American indeterminist
composer Henry Cowell – even to the point of incorporating ‘deliberate errors’
in his works so as not to move beyond his human station (Morgan, 1991). These
irregularities in the work make it more human, less hyper-real, cybernetic and
machine-like (Rodson, 1999). They serve as reminders as to the evolutionary
and tactile experience of the creative ritual and as such, reveal that the act
of conceiving and making the work is as much an aspect of the work as the
exhibited pieces. In reflecting the ritualised experience, it becomes clear that the
exhibited work in situ is not the total piece: the ambit of the opus includes the
preparation and experience of its making.
In observing Mason’s work, we are perhaps drawn to the most obvious figures:
dark parallels of shifting breadth. The tensions of the work, however, are perhaps
contained within successive stages of observation: the fading and inconsistencies
of the repetitive marks as material wears thin through repetition; differently
coloured replicas of the dominant form; layers of transformed imitations;
and the spaces or voids in-between. Together they form a visual fugue, a
polyphony of four dimensions within a two dimensional framework. Through
its interdependent energy, it moves through time as relief and in doing so,
liberates the spaces in-between from being considered as merely happenstance,
afterthought or oversight and elevates them to the status of possibility, future
experience and autonomy (Berlin, 1958). The breathing spaces between the
intensities of experience become as valued as the experiences themselves. It
within this framework, too, that the path illuminated by Solzhenitsyn may be
travelled: in inspecting the detail of the work, then widening the observable
scope to experience the totality, we become a party to the universality of
Mason’s observations, applying and filtering them through our own repertoire of
experience. Effectively, Mason’s energies discriminate between ways of knowing
and knowledge (De Bolla, 2002), and contextualises the result through the
‘interplay of signs arranged…according to the nature of the signifier’ (Foucault,
1969), the ‘fusion of internalised image and external representation’ (Ross & Ross,
1983) and the physicality of viewing (DeWitt, 1987).
It is through this physicality of viewing that Mason’s exhibition achieves clarity
through an initial confusion. The issue here is perhaps one of ‘world projecting
over world making’ (Woltorstorff, 1987). Through observation, we are met with
a seemingly unending parade of linear figures; but only through engaging with
this body of work is the sense of internalisation, synthesis and reflection made
apparent. It is a case of vigorous viewing rewarding the spectator. The clarity
achieved by Mason through this regime is highly significant: at once personal and
universal; simultaneously flowing and fractured; and concurrently minute and
colossal.
It is through the careful and negotiated interplay of dichotomies that Mason
(literally) makes her mark with this body of work, and this negotiation is summed
up expertly in the title of the exhibition: Sets & Series. At the same time, the title is
visual and musical; expressively improvisational (as in Berio’s Circles) and highly
ordered (as in the serialist composers of the mid twentieth century). In combining
apparent opposites in the methodologies and meanings of the work, Mason
presents a continuum of experience and possibility, built on the premises of
complementarity, integration and hybridity. Evocative attributes and filters for
engagement begin when the ordinary becomes the extra-ordinary, when valenki
(Solzhenitsyn, 1963) become more important than Pushkin (Berlin, 1958) and
when assimilation, retention, expression and transmission become the measures
of cultural evolution (Heylighen, 2002) in experientially focussed creative place
makings.
Dr David Sudmalis
Catalogue essay: Sets & Series (2006)
And then...
3
List of References
Adorno, T 1970 ‘Semblance and Expression’ in Adorno, G &
Tiedemann, R (eds) 1997 Aesthetic Theory Athlone Press, New York
Arnheim, R 1993 ‘From Pleasure to Contemplation’ in The Journal of
Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 51, No 2 (Spring) pp. 195-197
Berlin, I 1958 ‘Two Concepts of Liberty’ in Hardy, H & Hausheer, H
(eds) Isaiah Berlin - The Proper Study of Mankind: An Anthology of Essays,
Pimlico, London
Briggs, C 1993 ‘Personal Sentiments and Polyphonic Voices in Warao
Women’s Ritual Wailing: Music and Poetics in a Critical and Collective
Discourse’ in American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 95, No 4
(December) pp. 929-957
Broks, R 1980 Structural Functions of ‘Musical Gesture’ as Heard in
Selected Instrumental Compositions of the Twentieth Century:
A Graphic Analytic Method, UMI, Ann Arbor
De Bolla, P 2002 ‘Towards the Materiality of Aesthetic Experience’
in diacritics Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 19 -37
De Carvalho, J 1993 ‘Aesthetics of Opacity and Transparence: Myth,
Music, and Ritual in the Xango Cult and in the Western Art Tradition’
in Latin American Music Review, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Autumn-Winter), pp.
202-231
DeWitt, T 1987 ‘Visual Music: Searching for an Aesthetic’ in Leonardo,
Vol. 20, No. 2 Special Issue: Visual Art, Sound, Music and Technology,
pp 115-122
Forte, A, 1973 The Structure of Atonal Music, Yale University Press,
New Haven
Foucault, M 1969 ‘What is an author?’ in Faubion, J (ed) 1994
Aesthetics: Essential works of Foucault 1954 – 1984 (Volume 2)
pp. 207-222, Penguin, Harmondsworth
Untitled
1977
oil on canvas
45 x 51cm
(on loan from Peggy Cook)
Gabardi, W 2001 Negotiating Postmodernism, University of Minnesota
Press, Minneapolis
Heylighen, F 1998 ‘What makes a meme successful? Selection criteria
for cultural evolution’, in Proceedings of the 16th International Congress
on Cybernetics (Assoc. Internat. de Cybernetique, Namur), pp. 423-428
Morgan, R 1991 Twentieth Century Music, Norton, New York
Reich, S 1968 ‘Music as a gradual process’ in Reich, S 1974 Drumming,
Deutsche Grammophon LC0173, Hamburg
Rosdon, K 1999 ‘Review: Mark Dery - Escape Velocity: Cyberculture
at the End of the Century’ in IEEE Transactions on Professional
Communication, Vol 42, No. 2, pp. 141-142
Ross, M & Ross, C 1983 ‘Mothers, Infants and the Psychoanalytic
Study of Ritual’ in Signs, Vol. 9, No. 1, Women and Religion (Autumn),
pp. 26-39
Solzhenitsyn, A 1963 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Penguin,
Hamondsworth
Sudmalis, D 2002 Gesture in composition: A model of compositional
involving gestural and parametric development, and hybridisation
as examined in six original compositions PhD thesis, Sydney
Conservatorium of Music/University of Sydney
Watts, A 1958 The Spirit of Zen: A way of life, work and art in the far east,
Grove Press, New York
Wolterstorff, N 1987 ‘Philosophy of Art after Analysis and
Romanticism’ in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 46, pp.
151-167
Untitled
1984
mixed media on paper
27.5 x 37cm
(collection of the artist)
Untitled
c. 1989
oil on canvas
97 x 117cm
(collection of the artist)
And then...
5
The Net
1992
oil on canvas
60 x 76.5cm
(collection of the artist)
Swept Away
1993
oil on canvas
107 x 111cm
(collection of the artist)
And then...
7
Simuland
1994-6
oil on canvas
147 x 116cm
(collection of the artist)
Untitled
1999
silver leaf and acrylic on plywood
58.5cm dm
(collection of the artist)
And then...
9
The Illusion of “I” (4th state)
2005
lithograph
55 x 40cm
(collection of the artist)
Cement testers
2006
21 x 68cm
(collection of the artist)
O#1
2008
lithograph
27 x 95cm
(collection of the artist)
And then...
11
Blurred Noise
2006
ink and watercolour on paper
93 x 64cm x 6 units
(collection of the artist)
Untitled
2007
ink and watercolour on paper
86 x 93cm
(collection of the artist)
And then...
13
White over black over white…
2006-12
oil on canvas
122 x 152cm
(collection of the artist)
It’s Gonna Rain
2012
oil on canvas
122 x 152cm
(collection of the artist)
Knitted sampler
2010
wool and cotton on canvas board
20 x 15cm
(on loan from Jane Emery & Paul Bishop)
And then...
15
Academy Gallery
academy of the arts
SCHOOL OF VISUAL & PERFORMING ARTS LAUNCESTON
UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA
Staff: Malcom Bywaters, Director
Deborah Sciulli, Administrative Officer
Robert Boldkald, Exhibition Manager
Georgie Parker, President Academy Gallery Volunteer Club
Catalogue published by the University of Tasmania,
School of Visual and Performing Arts.
I N V E R M AY R OA D, I N V E R E S K
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All rights reserved. Copyright the author, artist and the
University of Tasmania, School of Visual and Performing Arts.
Author: Dr David Sudmalis
Photography: Dr Troy Ruffels, Robert Boldkald, Penny Mason
2012 Sponsors
All opinions expressed in the material contained in this publication are those of the author and not necessarily those of the publisher.
The University of Tasmania’s exhibitions program receives generous assistance from the Minister for the Arts, through Arts Tasmania.
Edition: 50
Catalogue ISBN: 978-1-86295-669-8
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