Dark Matter
W.D. Hammond, Peter Madden, Andre Tjaberings >

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Written by Anna Parlane

Dark matter, a mysterious substance which accounts for the vast majority of the mass of the universe, cannot be perceived or measured except by the impact it has on surrounding material. This notion – that massive invisible forces regulate the activity of the small percentage of reality perceptible to us – is a disconcerting one. Perhaps comparable in its haunting potency is the idea of the powerful but indiscernible influence of the human subconscious on the conscious activities of the brain. According to popular mythology, only one tenth of the human brain is ever engaged in activity – the remaining percentage is commonly cited as evidence of the seemingly limitless potential of human endeavour.

Brought together by guest curator Simon Esling, Dark Matter testifies to the cross-generational appeal of artistic investigations into the mysterious forces that drive us. At once seductive and strangely sinister, the works of W.D. Hammond, Peter Madden and Andre Tjaberings compel with their visual beauty and deft execution while plumbing the depths of human imagination.

Hammond’s sultry and dreamlike scenes are unnerving in their suggestion of potential violence. His menagerie of elegant zoomorphic creatures, emerging from a velvety, dripping darkness, is echoed in Madden’s proliferation of gorgeous and improbable wildlife that swarm through space, forming strange configurations. Tjabering’s monumentally destroyed architecture, evoking the tragic romance of the ruin, is also comprised of elaborately dysfunctional structures. Delicately represented, they have an air of grandeur and devastation.

Brooding and beguiling, these works explore the indefinable appeal of the darker side of humanity. Placed in conversation, they interrogate the power of visual language, the mysterious influences that both trouble and attract us.