Beholder

This body of work, by Danielle Zelna Alexander, is an investigation into the notion of construction and the veneer of ‘finishing’ an artwork. Drapery and cloth are used as a metaphor for ambiguity, passivity and tension to confuse the distinction of content, subject and peripheries. The traditional medium of oil paint is juxtaposed with the industrial medium of wall crack filler to highlight the faults or cracks in these physical and conceptual confinements.

An exercise in looking and then looking again. These works bring periphery and framing into question through the seductive lighting of abstract or mundane, blurring what gets to be depicted or represented in the historic medium of oil on canvas. Each work explores an unsettling quietness presented as passivity. Using cloth and physical frames to stand in for narratives of perception and representation, the work attempts to grapple with the issues of ambiguity and tensions in relation to the artist’s perception and understanding of identity. It also looks at what that means or is represented as within the art institutional context which, in its authoritarian nature creates a “framework” (context) for the content that it houses to exist in and be presented through. By using certain elements and traditions seen in the canon of art history these paintings set up a conversation around what can be accessed and who gets to engage with art and the institutions associated.