All images courtesy of the artist.
George Charman
By Jessica Brennan
George Charman’s art practice explores the parameters of the gestalt perspective as a means of questioning ones understanding of the organized wholeness of the space that surrounds us. His drawings actively subvert space in a way that is at once both jarring and subtly poetic. We are drawn into this deception by a series of recognizable traits – tone, shadow, surface – that automatically ground objects within the constructs of the real. It is the attention to detail and lustrous quality in his drawings that belies our faith in the organized wholeness of objects in space to act in a particular way. This opens up a platform of discussion concerning the notion of individual perception; how one interprets the experience of perceiving a wholly constructed space when left with only vestiges of a past experience.
In George’s work it is the built environment rather than the natural landscape that acts as the platform for ideas. The drawing or plan is employed as a language through which to explore constructed metaphysical space. The drawn construction often exists individually in the void space of the paper. Without reference to other objects or sight lines the constructions remain unanchored, free to exist in a space and at a scale defined by the viewer. This sense of elastic scale is heightened by George’s use of isometric projection, also known as the ‘god like perspective’. With no converging vanishing points both near and far planes exist in equal measure. This forces all reference points in terms of perspective to be drawn from the construction, the drawing becoming a world unto itself.
Jessie Brennan is an artist interested in local mythology and social narrative. The way she meticulously weaves together the signifier's of collected memories, reveal, through her equally meticulous drawing style, a landscape of overlapping histories.