HARRY STANBRIDGE, "Grids and Grounds," Oct 6 - 29, 2005, Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria

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HARRY STANBRIDGE, Grids and Grounds

Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria

Oct 6 - 29, 2005

By Melissa Whitlock

At first Harry Stanbridge’s paintings appear light and luminous, but a closer inspection allows layers of colour, pattern and meaning to unfold. In his new exhibition, Grids and Grounds, Stanbridge explores the fundamental processes of art making and art viewing. His goal is to engage the audience by employing a variety of different grounds against which he sets his grids and colours. Vibrating from underneath the grids are patterns of fish or archetypal images drawn from the history of art, like Albrecht Dürer’s wood block prints. Both of these elements lend an object to the abstraction and create an uncertainty about how to read what is being portrayed, leaving viewers to interpret the paintings as they see fit. The grids are often mixed with offset squares or bright circles of vibrant, unending colour called coronas. These coronas counteract the balance of the painting by simultaneously giving a focal point and pulsing with colour. The eye searches for and discovers stability as Stanbridge works to “engage the viewer in a consideration of the sublime and contemplative in human experience.”