Tim Andrew remembers a time, as a child, studying the wallpaper in the hallway of his childhood home. He imagined a timeline in the busy patterns of baroque scrolls and bouquets of flowers that stretched up from the floor – the ‘events’ of posies and scrolls recurring one after the other and one above the other, like moments along a continuum.
Andrew’s fascination at how far the wallpaper design extended through the floor and the ceiling has come to underlie his interest in repeating patterns. In reflecting on this moment, Andrew’s recounts:
‘The patterns bordered the ceiling and the floor, cut off halfway through an oak leaf urn motif – lead me to wonder how far through the floor and through the ceiling that the urns and flower might begin and end. That’s the beautiful thing about a pattern like that, it starts and stops, but doesn’t really begin or end – each section is like a window onto that spatial timeline, a special moment unique and yet just the same.’
Kittentinuum continues Andrew’s exploration of patterns, repetition and variance. A black and white wallpaper of kittens’ faces extend above and away from you, creating an extended backdrop of cats. ‘My kitten wallpaper is reflective of this idea of a continuum,’ Andrew explains, ‘The kittens are unique-ish, but also pretty much the same, they repeat indefinitely, a kind of “kittentinuum”’. Within each section each kitten’s face is unique, but in their numbers their individuality is obscured.
Hung in front of the kitten wall are bold, colourful prints and paintings of the same kitten pattern. Each print’s bright colours pop, contrasting with the black and white behind them.
Opening Event: 5.00–9.00pm on Saturday 27 August
Image:
Tim Andrew
Orange Kittens, 2014 (printed 2016)
440 × 630 mm
3 colour, hand screened print on 290gsm archival satin paper
