12 – 29 October 2017
about the exhibition
Chris Denton is known for his exquisitely detailed works on paper, which he describes as the “most beautiful and receptive of surfaces”. ‘white, red, black’ encapsulates the trajectory of the artist’s practice, boldly introducing minimal fields that contrast with his iconic motif, the dahlia flower. Both the drawings and prints in this exhibition involve a process of sequential layering in their making, creating their striking depth of colour and luscious surface. The prints achieve further sequencing with each plate often reworked to provide a number of states. The lone motif in this exhibition, an exquisite dahlia, emphasises beauty found in the underlying laws of nature. Chris’s immaculate representation contrasts strikingly against fields of apparent nothingness but this ‘void’ is actually filled with complex layers of detail, a meditation on the philosophical concept of empty space.Chris comments that the artwork in this exhibition is endowed with meaning through his continued“interest in the natural order, but also aims to provide the audience with a universal narrative, as the minimal fields and the dahlia move between one state and another.”
Chris Denton has exhibited widely and received numerous awards both nationally and internationally since his first show in the UK in 1969. His work has been shown across Australia and around the world, including galleries in Japan, China, France, Spain, Poland and the United States. Chris’ work is held in many important collections such as the National Gallery of Australia, National Library of Australia, Parliament House, Australian National University as well as many Australian regional galleries. Chris has also received international recognition through exhibitions at the International Centre for Graphic Arts (Cracow, Poland), the Association Museed’ArtContemporain (Chemalieres, France), Hawaii State Foundation for Culture and the Arts, GilkeyCenter for Graphic Arts (Portland, USA) and the Tama Art University (Tokyo, Japan) amongst others.
