Gabriel Curtin's paintings do a special thing, they allow the viewer to insert themselves and their own experiences into the memory-scapes. Gabriel does this with insight and mindfulness far beyond his years and we are excited to see what Gabriel does next. Keep your eye on this guy!
Enjoy! x
Artist Statement
"As soon as a moment has outlived its precise presentness it is lost to the fickle clutches of memory, a device ever-prone to fictionalisation. However, we depend on memory to navigate, react to and interact with life, despite its inadequacy in concreting the absolute truth.
A Fraction of the Whole presents nine paintings each depicting narratives from the artist’s daily life. The scenes, despite being contrived from individual experience, possess a universality inasmuch as they are not necessarily scenes of a unique nature. The paintings deliberately contain narratives which occur frequently in many people’s daily lives; bathing, riding a bicycle, playing or watching someone play guitar etc. Consequently the viewer is invited to recall their own memories in relation to the scenes presented to them. Rather than procuring mere images the individual naturally attaches details, emotional and otherwise, to these experiences. Through this, one relates to a scene which on a superficial level seems familiar, but in actuality belongs to a wholly other and untouchable set of experiences, namely the artist’s. This highlights the manipulatory quality of memory and its ability to confuse emotional and perceived experience.
The patterns surrounding the scenes are intentionally ambiguous, hinting at landscape and environments but rely on the viewer’s individual memory, fictionalised or not, to interpret them. These patterns seem to transcend the frames in which the paintings are housed, discreetly connecting each image. Such is the nature of memory and the perpetual stream of consciousness; images and words appearing seemingly disconnected, but whose connectedness, while perhaps not immediately perceptible, is palpable."
Biography
Gabriel spent the first half of his life in southern England and the second half in north-east Victoria. He now lives and studies in Melbourne.
See more of Gabriel's work at http://gabrielcurtin.tumblr.com/
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