In SPECULATIVE ARCHEOLOGY, Bruce Reynolds hijacks our attention with elements of familiarity, through his beautifully elegant and carefully crafted use of texture, motif, colour and form. Closer inspection exposes them as ambiguous, as it becomes obvious that the forms merely allude to the many layered histories they reference. The impression is that we are well acquainted with these objects, and yet, we are not.
Bruce Reynolds studied at the ANU School of Art, ACT, and at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. Now based in Brisbane, his career spans more than 30 years in Australia and abroad. As an arts practitioner and an educator,
Reynolds has exhibited in Australia and overseas and contributed extensively to Brisbane’s public art landscape. His work is held in major collections including National Gallery of Australia; Queensland Art Gallery; Museum of Brisbane; Artbank; the High Court, Queensland; and HOTA. This will be his first exhibition with artisan.
Placing oneself by the surrounding sea, I imagine decorating a newly formed vessel. With echoes of origin stories, motifs colonize surfaces even before forms are cast. Image and object are brought together and the gypsum, like chalk, is made of the calcium of crustaceans and other organisms both familiar and exotic that float and sink. Their motifs embrace the archaic and in the absence of digital technologies serve to marry ideas with the physical.
Bruce Reynolds 2022
Exhibition Opening: Friday 4 November 6:00PM – 8:00PM
