SHADOW LAYERS – Lisa Stewart and Cameron Tauschke

April 30 – Mai 21 2016

For the two artists Lisa Stewart and Cameron Tauschke (Australia) collage and drawing play a central role in their creative process. Both artists create tensions formed through the re-assemblage of found and selected imagery, following leakages from their subconscious. They reorder and remix; in an associative game that creates new meanings and possibilities out of commonplace imagery, creating space for the ‘darker unknown’ to rise to the surface. Just like the bricklayer who lays bricks in the making of a wall, the two artists focus on ‘laying shadows’ in the making of their imagery.
In their artworks Stewart and Tauschke lay emotional and compositional shadows. Their use of dark and vibrant tones allows the two artists to explore the concept of ‘shadow layers’. Their artworks represent time eras, which fluctuate between futuristic visions, historical nostalgia and our current contemporary era. Their imagery is fragmented, collaged, manipulated, erased and predominantly concentrates on the relationship of the figure within secret fictional landscapes.
For Lisa Stewart her collage artworks are conceptual mappings whereby she explores subconscious symbols as a method of decoding intuitive instincts. Drawing from the inner territory of her mind, Stewart’s collages invite the viewer to venture into the crevices of her consciousness. Stewart’s images are dream spaces and capture cracks in reality. Her images are mysterious and represent her own perceptions of reality, reordering fragments from the past to contemplate possible futures. Her recent collage artworks create visual metaphors that seek to grasp the slippery interior of the mind. What greatly interests Stewart are the images that are not at the forefront of her mind but hidden deep amongst shadows and hidden tracks of her thoughts and desires.
For Cameron Tauschke his images use layers of collage, drawing and painting. In his series ‘Gothic Fingers’ he explores cinematic poster qualities for a film which does not exist. Tauschke’s collages focus on fragmented narratives which travel back and forth to the middle ages where market scenes, executioners, mountain peaks, fog, medieval architecture and characters live out roles in order to represent layers of time and emotional zones. In addition, central to Tauschke’s ‘Gothic Fingers’ imagery is his focus on contrasts – intense colour tones against black and grey, organic forms against geometric forms, and contrasts of the medieval era placed against contemporary reality.
Stewart and Tauschke uncover sheets, slices and layers of imagery, using tones of night, shade and shadow in the fictionalisation and exploration of pictorial reality.
(Falco Sternburg, November 2015)