It’s undeniable that dating apps have changed modern datingculture and the collective growing distrust and fatigue singles are feelingtowards the apps is steadily rising. There’s plenty to unpack in how theseplatforms are affecting romantic relationships and redefining our outlook onintimacy. The shift comes as no great surprise considering the greater contextof social changes currently going on. The trend towards hyper-individualism,‘main character energy’, political polarization, pushback against women’srights, and the fragility of white male entitlement, is all being amplified byonline platforms.

Superficiality, ghosting, disrespect and lack of accountabilityonline is off the charts. There’s a sad irony in how offensive behaviour hasbecome normalised in digital spaces fundamentally designed for humanconnection. It's like we're collectively losing our social skills in this newnormal, economy of digital social exchanges.  Academics researching digital intimacyare describing what most of us already feel with some truly depressing findingson the impacts of dating apps, the rise of hook-up culture, ‘situationships’and how we're connecting more broadly. It seems there's an actual upward trendin difficulty forming long-lasting bonds and real intimacy.

Ten years ago Vanity Fairsounded the alarm with its sensationally titled article “Tinder and the Dawn ofthe Dating Apocalypse,” arguing that dating apps had ushered in ahit-it-and-quit-it hookup culture driven by instant gratification. The piecedepicted Tinder as a game rigged in favour of the boys, bleakly suggesting thatwhen faced with a perceived abundance of options, men pursue a short-termmating strategy and no longer have any reason to commit to seriousrelationships. Described as the “UberEATS of relationships” dating apps areblamed for contributing to the commodification of individuals and encouraging adisposability akin to mass consumption. With endless potential matchesjust a swipe away, contemporary culture has become accustomed to having aseemingly endless supply of potential romantic and sexual partners.Relationships have become a form of entertainment, a gamified“relationshipshopping” experience where users can date secure in the knowledgethey can always return to the marketplace for another bout of shopping. Thisis redefining views on relationships and intimacy within modern society,leading some academics to argue that dating apps represent a shift towards a"post-romantic" view of love, where relationships are seen asefficient and risk-free interactions, neglecting the emotional complexities andvulnerabilities of true intimacy.

While Edward Steichen is justifiably remembered as one of thepioneers of fashion photography, and a great innovator of the medium morebroadly, it is the quality and striking composition of his images that findspurchase in our mind. Unlike many photographers, who use the medium to‘capture’ moments of genius, divine accident or punctum, Steichen comes fromthe opposite angle. Each photograph is carefully composed, carefully lit,carefully considered, to say nothing of his impeccable development process. Owingat least in part to his training in painting and lithography, Steichen broughtan almost classicist sensibility to photography, creating a strong and specificstrain of modernism to the still-new medium. Steichen’s models look statuesqueand unattainable in their perfection, complicating the sensualist or surrealistreadings so often associated with the eroticism of the day. Steichen’s take oneroticism, if we can call it that, is at least as enthralled in compositionaland surface finery as it is in the human form. Owing in part to his innovationof the fashion shoot (or to be more specific, taking the fashion shoot takenoutside of the fashion houses and into different settings, giving the images asense of heighted, theatrical drama), and its sumptuous tonality, Steichen’swork remains timeless, carved in photographic granite.

-Jonathan McBurnie

Gemma Smith’s practice tends to be series-based, which slowly moves along a continuum of colour and surface that belies an abiding fascination with the exploration of media. Each series, or perhaps approach is the better descriptor, seeks to resolve a specific set of visual problems, pushing back against its own context, whether tenets of high Modernism, hard-edge abstraction or abstract expressionism. Whether exploring opacity, form or space, Smith’s work tends to be united in its sense of resolution or finish. Even Smith’s most gestural works shy from messy humanity, resolving in a sense of visual order and calm resolution to the most unruly of problems. Smith’s ‘boulder’ works take this sense of finish to the extreme, with their sheer, shimmering planes and vivid colours. These works sit in conversation with the busier paintings, and like their namesake they encourage stillness and, by virtue of their surfaces, reflection.

While Edward Ruscha is often remembered specifically for hisdeadpan text works and incredible drawing and painting abilities, he has alsoindulged in many side projects that explore his obsessions—signage, California and the built environment—inunexpected ways. Perhaps his most famous book work, Every Building on theSunset Strip (1966) reflects these fascinations, making use of the artistbook, an intimate medium for presenting such ideas. Each lithograph on eachpleated page depicts a part of the two and a half mile stretch made famous infilm and popular culture, offering perhaps the most personal and revealingglimpse of the artist himself.

John Baldessari is not an artist one might commonly associate with notions of intimacy. In fact, much of his work deliberately obscures personal details and symbols, disassociating the artist from romantic conceptions of the artist as a bard-like revelator of truth, mining emotion and pathos to reveal the inner self, or an essential humanity. However, Baldessari’s artist book Fable:A sentence of thirteen parts (with twelve alternate verbs) ending in FABLE (1977)reveals more of the artist than so many works, specifically through his enduring love of film, and of course the medium of the artist book itself,which depends so much upon the intimate reading experience. Fable is made up of film stills, distorted through the process of photographing them directly from the television screen. The yellow, hand written words and the images are flattened through the lithographic process, allowing for a sense of play in the artist book’s simple premise. Displayed as an object, viewers are free to make their own readings and observations. While Baldessari does keep the view here at somewhat of a distance, what does come across is his sincere love of film, a recurring motif through much of the artist’s vast oeuvre.

Carrol Jerrems’ photographic practice is simultaneously timeless and a time-capsule that depicts her all-too-brief adulthood in the 1970s. That timeless quality comes from the incredible closeness and intimacy depicted in her subjects, some of whom were friends and acquaintances. Jerrems also explored a gently performative self-portraiture adding another register of melancholic intimacy to her work (Jerrems died young at age 30). These five works, which include her most famous image, all have a domestic sensibility to them, capturing quiet moments of interaction between subjects and sometimes the camera. Viewers can’t help but to create narratives around these very vivid moments. Are they lover? Are they friends? Who is that goofing off in front ofthe camera? Who is being gossiped about? Additionally, Jerrems’ photographs capture a kind of lost Australia, a visual analogue to the early novels of Helen Garner, an Australia in the process of losing its innocence, but stillbeautiful, like that photo of yourself at 32 which you thought at the time made you look fat, but now you see somebody different, younger, more comfortable with the world than your contemporary self. Jerrems’ influence is far reaching, and can be seen in many artists of younger generations, a lasting legacy for an all-too-short career.

My painting practice explores self-portraiture as both protagonist and antagonist in a symbolic theatre of inner duality. Each work becomes an introspective confrontation, where the surreal imagery I meticulously render serves to externalise the fragile dialogue between self-destruction and self-realisation. By inserting my own presence into these compositions, I position consciousness itself as paramount while at the same time acknowledging the banality of my physical existence amongst billions of other humans and animals across time. This juxtaposition creates a dialogue between the deeply personal and the universal reflecting my most crucial revelation after twenty years of painting in solitude: that intimacy with the self lies in recognising how perilously close collapse and clarity are within the pursuit of identity.My paintings are both confession and evidence, a visual testament leaving behind not just an image, but evidence of the human soul.

I am an avid collector of magazines and second hand books. They are my main source material from which I obtain inspiration and ideas for my paintings; I enjoy spending a considerable amount of time looking through my collection, and finding the “right” images. The magazines are predominantly women’s fashion magazines. Whereas, the books generally feature two main separate subjects: the natural world (particularly plants, flowers, birds, animals and insects) and food (particularly sweet treats).

When sourcing images from women’s fashion magazines, I seek images that are visually loaded and have strong narrative characteristics. I find fashion photography interesting, I am naturally attracted to the production quality of the photographs, their formal qualities and their chimerical sensory appearance. However the fashionable clothes are not the reason why I choose my images; rather, I find the overall mood or feeling surrounding the image more intriguing. Above all, I am attracted to a certain sense of vulnerability, melancholy, dramatic tension and introspection. Most importantly, on one level or another, I can relate personally to each selected image, and elements of myself are imprinted in each one. They hold tell tale signs of who I am and my place in the world.

The desire to source images from beyond the confines of fashion magazines and from a broader subject base, has developed within my work, particularly over the last six years. They include diverse images from the botanical world, or animals and birds, various pieces of furniture or food items.

Upon selecting these images and through the process of drawing and painting, I transport them to the realms of fine art. I isolate each model / figure from the magazine or book context, and I enjoy the transformation process that occurs when I begin painting the image. When I remove the photographs from their original context (the magazine / book world), when I transform the photographs into paintings and install them on a gallery wall, I replace the original meaning and supplement it with an additional meaning. My paintings become allegorical in this sense. I re-contextualise highly composed magazine portraits; I remove them from their original task of promoting a product, a look, or indeed themselves, and after the painting and installation process, my subjects appear vulnerable and exposed. My work presents a launching pad for a narrative by taking a nondescript image and placing it within the realms of fine art. Therefore I elevate the banal and my work gives personal significance to anonymous imagery.

My paintings are very precise, meticulously detailed and(individually) small in scale. I use acrylic paint and watercolour pencils on paper and (occasionally) on canvas. I especially enjoy the painting process itself. I always produce slowly; drawing the image is the starting point, and next, a considerable amount of time is spent filling in all the features,layering acrylic paint as a base, and then ultimately refining the details using watercolour pencils. Whenever I finish painting an image, sometimes I use scissors and cut-out the figures, thus detaching them further from their original context. Other times, I leave them as they are, complete with their own background.

A crucial aspect of my work is the final stage, after all the paintings have been completed, the process of installing and arranging my paintings on the gallery wall comes into play. I like everything to the displayed en masse. I feel responsible for making the right decisions about where to place certain images in relation to others and how to get the most out of each piece. The wall becomes a specific framed space, like a giant canvas. Scale is a relative concept. It is not about size or about a single image, but ultimately is about how one image relates to another and how collectively, these images / figures seem to come together as they fall apart.

[statement continues...]

‘Immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort ofexpansion of being that life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we become motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense. Indeed, immensity is the movement of motionless man. It is one of the dynamic characteristics of quiet daydreaming.

The house, from cellar to garret, the significance of the hut.

[….] we cover the universe with drawings we have lived. Thesedrawings need not be exact. They need only to be totalised on the mode of our inner space.”

[….] a voice so remote within me, that it will be the voice we allhear when we listen as far back as memory reaches, on the very limits of memory, beyond memory perhaps, in the field of the immemorial.’

- Gaston Bachelard

From The Poetics of Space, translated by Maria Jolas.

Published by the Orion Press, 1964.

Over the years different subjects have been the focus of myattention. Cars, roadside signs, motorbikes and their riders in Indonesia, ‘Big Things’, shoes abandoned in the streets, discarded chairs and bollards to name a few. Reflecting on this growing list of subject matter I can see patterns in the choices I have made but perhaps they are not always obvious to others. While the central motif in these paintings form a significant element of the meaning of the work, where it is located and how it is framed is of equal importance. And even when in some cases the background becomes more interesting to me, without its counterpart in the foreground the painting is not complete.

In terms of my subject choice, humour and pathos have played a strong role but that is not the whole story. In the moment of observing a scene I may be drawn to the way the sun falls on something, or a reflection in a window of the landscape beyond. The more ephemeral aspects of what is seen are just as important to me in choosing something to concentrate on. Photography captures these moments with ease but painting produces other connections over a longer period. I hope that by painting these things I can capture something of those moments.