Jan Manton Gallery is pleased to present The Days Run Away by Ian Friend on show at the gallery between 19 January – 6 February 2022. The survey exhibition features works from his earlier practice, as well as very recent creations including a series of sculptures, the first made by Ian in decades. Rather than provide a clear narrative for its audience, The Days Run Away invites the viewer to take pleasure in the abstract and poetic nature of its works.
Catalogue essay writer Zali Matthews states:
The songs, poems and stories informing Friend’s works emerge as abstract, rounded forms, sometimes large and elongated, fine and peppery, or translucent and amorphous. They are repeated endlessly, compulsively: in white clumps, like snow; or in groups of fine dots, like small perforations in paper, clustered galaxies or sheets of falling rain. Looking at Friend’s works, the viewer is given the impression of looking both in and out, at atoms and at galaxies. Friend blurs the boundaries between micro- and macrocosms, removing human scale.
Exhibition Opening 2 – 4pm Wednesday 26 January- Australia Day Public Holiday.
Please join us for the opening of The Days Runaway by Ian Friend Wednesday 26 January- Australia Day Public Holiday, from 2 – 4pm. Two opening sessions will be available to attend, due to restricted numbers we ask you please only RSVP to one session time to allow others to attend.
Guest speaker Simon Wright, Assistant Director, Learning + Public Engagement, QAGOMA Queensland Art Gallery I Gallery of Modern Art, will open the exhibition at 2:30 and 4:30.
Image: Persephone, 2021, painted bronze and ironbark (detail).
