Brisbane-based artists Anthony Baker, Simone Hine, and Victoria Wareham come together for Cross Dissolve.
In the exhibition, the artists employ video as a medium to dismantle and reconstruct established concepts of representation, narrative, and identity. Artist Anthony Baker discusses the group collaboration, curated by Annelize Mulder.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE EXHIBITION…
Anthony Baker (AB): Bringing together these video works, Annelize Mulder (Metro Arts Curator) suggests an interesting analogy between the experience of the self and the medium’s technicalities.
It is well-accepted that a painting can express ideas and feeling through mark-making and style. Video art lacks the same historical lineage and exists alongside its cinematic discourse and the contemporary phenomena of the screen’s abundance and immediacy in our daily lives.
The Distance Between Us (2019) uses two videos that are slightly different in length. The audio and vision fall in and out of synchronicity like staring through a daydream at vehicle indicators in a traffic jam.
Beginning in 2017 I began documenting objects and architecture where teal greens and whites met, reminiscent of a hospice motif. Digital frames of footage were abstracted and reassigned these images to pixel brightness values. These images become compressed.
A lot of the array are never assigned. I was unaware the images would end up actually in any artwork. I feel this process and intention behind this work speaks to the crux of this exhibition Cross-Dissolve.
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF AS AN ARTIST?
AB: It would be nice to think that as an artist I am being selfless and channelling some lost thing necessary for someone else’s understanding of something. That is at least an ideal value. I wonder though if I am just a bit reckless and a bit of a thrill seeker.
A lot of what I do is experimental and I gamble a lot of time inquiring into uncertain processes. It generally pays off. I make to not think and enjoy making and learning. Any obligatory seriousness can be applied afterwards, or before.
WHO INSPIRES YOU AND WHY?
AB: I’m inspired by people in my daily life. As an artist, it is my artist friends and mentors that inspire me. I just try to keep things local simple in that respect because it is so easy to be oversaturated by the internet, social media and institutions now.
I’ve had a bit of an obsession with Moscow group Collective Actions for a while now. That is retrospective though. They were addressing really seriousness ideas with an absurd banality.
HOW DID YOU DISCOVER YOUR LOVE FOR VISUAL ARTS?
AB: Art and creating have just always been there, probably more like an escape. Since completing my PhD I have been doing commercial work where I am fulfilling someone else’s ideas. Maybe it has been that which has prompted me to be aware that I actually do love visual art. The tasks are quite laborious in a different way to my research. And love isn’t always easy or what you want. It is hard work not necessarily for your own interests.
Cross Dissolve exhibited in the Metro Arts Galleries 3 FEB – 9 MAR, West Village, West End.
