‘‘Supreme’’, Chris Heaphy
(Milford Gallery)
CHRIS HEAPHY’S world is one of silhouetted symbolism, in which motifs build in reflection and repetition to create a whole that is more than the sum of its parts.
An initial inspection seems to suggest a facile simplicity. We are presented with an array of seemingly disparate objects in stark coloured silhouette presented against a featureless background. As with the related work of Richard Killeen, however, this interpretation does not scrape the surface of the artist’s work.
Heaphy’s silhouetted objects reflect and create a narrative which touches on subjects ranging from the culture clash of early colonialism to conservation. The messages are not blatant, however, and are left open to the viewer’s interpretation.
The images in this exhibition form two groups simple mixed media works on paper with motifs drawn over rich gold and ultramarine surfaces, and works in which transferred and stencilled silhouettes are presented against a deliberately bland flat surface. In the latter works, the negative space of the background becomes a character in the stageplay, a looming presence rather than an absence of motif. This is particularly true in the artist’s piece de resistance, the astonishing mandalalike The
Floating World, a work which could be viewed for hours on end and still not reveal all its hidden secrets.