Oscar Yanez and Bryan Spier
Study for a Collaborative Exhibition
04.03.20 – 21.03.20

‘Study for a collaborative exhibition at Five Walls’ applies collage and assemblage to transform the gallery space into a speculatively painted environment. Oscar Yanez and Bryan Spier are painters known for working in an abstract idiom, each constructing images from an idiosyncratic alphabet of non-representational forms and colours. Their works are similar and sympathetic in some ways, but operate with an entirely different syntax of forms and associations. The purpose of collaborating is to allow a new syntax to emerge from negotiation, frustration, conflict, and the real constraints of time and language. The project should be thought of as a 1:1 scale working drawing rather than a resolved artwork. Yanez and Spier have devised the exhibition as a way to work that is speculative, improvised, and enjoyable – but also ambitious and challenging.

Oscar Yanez and Bryan Spier have worked closely in the past, but this is the first time they have collaborated. Yanez studied at the Sydney College of the Arts and has exhibited widely, with highlights including Against The Amnesiac Lifestyle at Gertrude Contemporary and more recently Plasti Figura at West Space. He is also a musician and chef of some renown. Spier studied at the Canberra School of Art and is represented by Sarah Scout. He tutors in interior design and also has a sideline as a bureaucrat.