Olivia Welch

 

Playing the role of creative matchmaker, the curator, Olivia Welch, paired together artists to see what two minds and four hands produce when working in tandem. This project was not solely concerned with the end product - the entire process was captured and documented on the Brenda May Gallery blog, accessible from their website.

 

Artists included: Melinda Le Guay + Leslie Oliver, Al Munro + Waratah Lahy, Mylyn Nguyen + Todd Fuller.

 

Although artistic partnerships are abundant in the art world, not all are alike. In Tandem began with the pairing of six of Brenda May Gallery’s represented artists to form three duos who, in turn, interpreted this brief of collective creation in differing ways. Where Mylyn Nguyen and Todd Fuller collaborated to create joint narratives of whimsy and curiosity through sculpture, Al Munro and Waratah Lahy worked in conversation with one another, using aesthetic and thematic crossovers as a point of departure to realise individual bodies of work. Leslie Oliver and Melinda Le Guay demonstrated another type of artistic relationship, collecting and swapping items with one another that will compose works reflective of their mutual obsession with rescuing materials.

 

In Tandem greeted its viewers with bold colour, whimsical narratives and engaging, layered scenes. Occupying one corner were Al Munro's multicoloured structures finished in bold neon hues and glittery stripes, which were constructed with inspiration from Waratah Lahy's paintings. Independently, Lahy offered intimate canvases of distorted views, painted in rich colours and with geometrical forms that pay homage to Munro's use of crystallographic shapes. Captivating audiences with their dual micro/macro effect, Todd Fuller's bot-bellied, ceramic boys and bears embellished with Mylyn Nguyen's delightful figures and miniature worlds display an emerging, yet incredibly simpatico, artistic relationship. In their 'Double Vision' series, Melinda Le Guay used erasure where Leslie Oliver employed colour and form. Le Guay buffed the charcoal background that Oliver filled in and layered with chicken wire, and after Oliver created a field of shape and colour, Le Guay removed tone and visibility, shrouding the piece with hand-knitted thread.

 

Click here for the latest on In Tandem, recorded on the Brenda May Gallery Blog.

 

 

Images courtesy of the Artists and Brenda May Gallery