Canadian artist Marc Hundley converses his range of personal works over the last 10 years of his sole practice
In a stimulating collaboration between Sydney publishing company Rainoff Books and Darren Knight Gallery, Canadian artist Marc Hundley showcased a resonating collection of visual works created by him for the past ten years brought to Sydney via New York. His residency at Darren Knight Gallery in Waterloo hinges canvassed banners, transcribed lyrics onto imprint that is intimately personal within the continuum of time.
For time as a constant measure of distance and speed, that principally governs both human and natural interactions, it was an aspect that recurred throughout the cycle of his artist talk hosted last Saturday at Darren Knight. On the upper tiered level of the gallery, Hundley described the imprint of a black and white photography of American songwriter Joni Mitchell who happily spoke of Mitchell’s acoustic reverberations bouncing off the walls of his New York based studio. Another psychedelic imprint entitled ‘The Donovan Fan Club’ consisted of fan supporters insulated within swirling feathers of an illustrious peacock.
Hundley mentally photographs and melodically emulsifies his textural pieces in which ostensibly, they are unable to ever be reproduced again and irreplaceable within the passing of time. To emphasise this, another poster with acrylic containing the words: ‘Well I can be cruel but let me be gentle with you’ by Joni Mitchell, is dated. So much so does it reoccur within the musical poem ‘City Crazy’ in 2008, the definition of a weaverbird self-titled and a sun-yellow centered poster created this year titled ‘Weren’t Those Tears In Your Eyes?’ with contained lyrics by Led Zeppelin. All of these leaf sheets not only intimately portray Hundley as a recording artist but the attempts to frame time itself and to denote the authors may actually allow his visual works to ascertain a sentimental value beyond lyrical anonymity.
In a square shaped poster the chiaroscuro of Billie Holiday’s face leaves her isolated and distant with a glimmer of longing glazed on her face. As a sensually aural and instrumental cover, perhaps the frozen chiaroscuro shares a spiritual connection with Hundley’s stenciled banners canvassed across the ground floor. The archrtypal white t-shirt near the gallery’s entrance and communal messages of ‘Bring Us Together’ and ‘See the Love in our Eyes’, are forms of heartfelt protests and activism laced within performance art. Given the American public’s disdain for the enraging conflict of The Vietnam War in the 1969, John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono’s creation of a politically motivated poster consisting of ‘War is Over (if you want it)’, both they and Hundley transversed a democratic outcry of freedoms in personal expression that eschews art as reproductions but to heighten their contained power graphically and sub-consciously.
The pleasing tactile nature of an autumn brown folded paper piece, the ultilisation of his choice of stenciling as a form of mark making and the typewritten typography as lyrical dossiers, Hundley’s most recent contemplative works are personal narratives and also attracts us spatially surrounded by a sweet-sounding poignant language.
Marc Hundley – www.darrenknightgallery.com
