The titular 'organisms' are sketched in black ink. Each line is a short peck, a tiny crack of drawing, millimetres long and no more. Further away, they become whipping lines of flow and motion. Shells open and spew out eyes, tentacles, a tiny heart, a spider, a skull. They form flagella, nuclei, escaping fluid and just stuff. Eyes seem to grow, flesh accretes on coralline forms. Their movements hang, suspended.
 

In papier-mache, the first of the small 'specimens' sit under glass. These seem to rustle under their bell jars in moth-like, iridescent colours wrapped by a white outer shell. Nearby, tall cousins with lily-pad heads or wind-swept white limbs stroll from their plinth. In a final corridor, larger ones have escaped their bell jars. Most of them a foot long, they crawl up the walls, hide in crevices or explode in flight. Skins hospital white, their insides strain to escape, full of bright washes and pulsing vessels of colour — shell fish, seaweeds, and white spidery things. Some seem familiar from the ink drawings, but others have no connection. Scuttling, they sit at the end of a slow germination; unreal, convincing and vivacious. Not all of Stahel's work matches the vibrancy of these final creatures, but these Aussie alebrijes would be worth a show all their own.

 

What: Jack Stahel's Organism
 

Where: Kudos Gallery, 6 Napier St, Paddington
 

When: Until 8 October
 

How much: Free