In keeping with his exploration of colour, the Tokyo Drawing Paintings are a delayed response to experiences of random structural oddities observed in the gardens and streets of Tokyo. They are stylised records of translation via the calligraphic process and selective colour choice, which combine the personal with the other.
Effectively reintroducing drawing to Serisier’s practice, the linear works are alive with the complexity of organic structures. “The drawing is a response to natural grids observed in the gardens and in the streets of Tokyo,” says Serisier, adding, “Because they’re based on an organic grid, there is a mapping process similar to a matrix. It’s a layered mapping, rather than mapping across a single plane.”
The paintings were made on Serisier’s return from a trip to Japan, and while created in the studio from memory, have an intense immediacy. “They’re direct, and they’re made in one sitting, although it may be a very extended sitting,” says Serisier, who paints with oil directly onto linen.
Over the last decade, Serisier has been making paintings using ready-made-colour. That is, in his case, colour that has been sourced from photographic processes, or sourced directly, either from nature or from culture, such as, luminous yellow, yellow, green, orange, red, blue. “As they have been sourced directly from our world, I can take them back to the direct source, even though the viewer may take them back to their own point of origin, rather than me taking them to the source, to make or to select the colour.”
While this may feel like a departure from the monochromes of incrementally layered veils of colour his oeuvre is noted for, it is more a reengagement with Serisier’s own history of experimentation. “There’s a strong material presence and a complexity of colour to my work derived through the fine layers of colour, and these are similar in that there’s a complexity to them through the layering of drawing, but in in the majority of the paintings, they are single colours.”
Touching on painting, printmaking and photography, Serisier has selected colours that signify a diverse range of subjects from Papal purples to white dogs in golden light and the colours of every day. “I’ve been drawn to colour, which is arguably not sign colour, because it has a complexity that is more likely sourced in nature or on urban streets or city streets.”
There is a certain democracy to his colour choice, which can be viewed as high and low colour depending on how the viewer interprets the shade. As such, while the colours for this show are from past series of works, they are open to interpretation, and the yellows, while a complexly sourced range from digital photographs of nature, can be seen as the yellow of a truck. Similarly, the reds are complexly drawn from nature via digital reproduction, or the red of industry or the ubiquitous Coca Cola can. Each are allowed a contextualisation back to the urban or industrial system colours.
The eight paintings comprising the exhibition are robust and engaging with Serisier’s ability to hold a composition across a large canvas verging on the virtuosic. Colour too is exemplary with the complexity of line pushing the colour to direct the eye across the field.
The exhibition closes on Saturday the 19th with a floor talk by Serisier at 2pm.
About David Serisier
David Serisier is an Australian artist born in Orange NSW in 1958, currently residing on Wirudjiri Country. His oeuvre represents his ongoing commitment to the investigation of colour, visual perception and everyday experience as subjects for painting. Serisier draws from a range of sources, including digital records, natural events, idiosyncrasies and random moments that pique his curiosity.
