Canvas :: Daniel Templeman’s Back and Forth

September 19th 2011

 

Logic. You don’t see it all the time in art today. In fact I think you could argue you see its opposite – chaos. But, I find there’s something so calming about logic, so relaxing in its order. This is how I felt after seeing Daniel Templeman’s new exhibition at Gallery Barry Keldoulis.

Featuring a mixture of sculptures, wall-reliefs and carbon-transfer drawings all the works pose these subtle dilemmas for the audience to figure out. This all sounds a bit like a riddle itself, let me try and be clearer.

My favourite works were these particle board based sculptures. One called Sides, sits in the centre of the room on a plinth. To me it sort of looked like a slinky of wooden board, folding in on itself. And this is where the riddles and logic come into play – how on earth has Templeman made what should be rigid board look like flowing curls?

Then there’s Sight Lines, a huge wall based sculpture, all in white, with these perfectly, even obsessive compulsively, scratched-out patterns that create optical illusions of depth. You look at the work from different angles and suddenly there’s these 3D cubes popping out at you from a 2D surface. Go up close to the work and its literally just perfectly scored lines in such precise patterns, it could have been done with a machine because there is not even a trace of a fault in this over 7 metre work. It reminds me of optical illusions where you stare at a muddle of lines for a long time and suddenly a face appears!

All of these artworks are filled with this contained energy, as if they are ready to spring open or explode at any moment. Templeman has definitely captured this feeling of taming the seemingly impossible, of controlling what could easily be chaos. It’s quite easy to forget how exciting Minimalism can be, how refreshing it is to have clarity of lines and this tension between motion and stillness. Templeman will remind you of this and more.


What: Daniel Templeman’s Back and Forth

Where: Gallery Barry Keldoulis, Young St, Waterloo

When: Tues – Sat 11am – 6pm until October 8th

How much: Free
 

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