Adrian Corke

Beauty and Foreboding

April 4th – 26th, 2025

ADRIAN CORKE BEAUTY AND FOREBODING Catalogue

  Artists over centuries have faced the enduring struggle for representation against the flat canvas. It is this space itself — the world within — in which an artist frames their point of view for you, the viewer.  Pensive arches, the eerie discord of fractured perspectives and the compounding illusion of depth against the flatness of a painted surface have over time been the hallmarks and provided stages from which ideals were declared. These spaces made declarations to the viewer.  We paid attention, were aware of oneself within space, and were presented a dynamic window into the mind of the artist. We were encouraged to engage, adopt the argument posited and ‘enter’. But our current world no longer uses these same spaces for their arguments.  The simplicity and peace of a singular perspective now reads hollow when now those ‘ideal’ images can be digitally fabricated. Or when the torrent of perspectives found online are so easily deflected with the flick of a hand. Where the spaces around us are both endlessly replicated and echoed… Today, we have abandoned those pensive archways. Those pristine surfaces of ancient quietude. The conflicting lines of the modernist world. There is no space for the wandering thought.  It is these missing spaces that I present here today. In lieu of moral virtue, rhetorical symbol, or reactionary fervour, I hope to create spaces of intuition. The foundations built from memory and experience. The surfaces formed from time, culture and place. With wide-eyed windows and errant rooms, so that the viewer’s gaze may wander through these interior worlds and decorate the surfaces with their thoughts. To settle amongst this architecture of instinct and furnish each world with their humanity. These spaces make no declarations. They are for your thoughts to wander.