Test Pattern
review of this tone by Mitchell Donaldson
There is an unexpected delicacy to Jarrod Van Der Ryken’s work. Delicacy may be a surprising description considering the installation in the darkened project room comprises an overwhelmingly large pile of bricks that evince an obvious gravity. On the opening night of Test Pattern, I am told a performer was immured beneath the pile with one hand emerging from a small gap between bricks. The potential drama and shock of this gesture was cleverly undermined by the positioning of a spotlight on a different area of the pile, drawing the eye. Visiting the show during the week, there was no hand, yet this didn’t fully diminish the strength of the work. The sheer number of bricks took me by surprise, nearly a third of the space seemed occupied by them. Whilst there was an intimation of sublime power in this semi-ruinous pile, it was contrasted by a subtle formal intent in the neat stacking of many of the bricks. I also felt they were curiously soft, their crumbling terracotta coloured material adding a slight fleshiness to their appearance. The overall result, at least for me, was strangely comforting. In its original incarnation at QUT’s 2013 graduate exhibition, the bricks gave the impression of a grave, however, here the increased scale shifts this reading more toward some form of dwelling. The bricks then may best be understood as exactly what they are, a wall built to house, obstruct or protect the artist or performer. There is a tension then between the attempt to read or interpret this work, and its shear unreadability; its determination to conceal, embodied in the battered but defiant exterior it displays.
review of this tone by Mitchell Donaldson
There is an unexpected delicacy to Jarrod Van Der Ryken’s work. Delicacy may be a surprising description considering the installation in the darkened project room comprises an overwhelmingly large pile of bricks that evince an obvious gravity. On the opening night of Test Pattern, I am told a performer was immured beneath the pile with one hand emerging from a small gap between bricks. The potential drama and shock of this gesture was cleverly undermined by the positioning of a spotlight on a different area of the pile, drawing the eye. Visiting the show during the week, there was no hand, yet this didn’t fully diminish the strength of the work. The sheer number of bricks took me by surprise, nearly a third of the space seemed occupied by them. Whilst there was an intimation of sublime power in this semi-ruinous pile, it was contrasted by a subtle formal intent in the neat stacking of many of the bricks. I also felt they were curiously soft, their crumbling terracotta coloured material adding a slight fleshiness to their appearance. The overall result, at least for me, was strangely comforting. In its original incarnation at QUT’s 2013 graduate exhibition, the bricks gave the impression of a grave, however, here the increased scale shifts this reading more toward some form of dwelling. The bricks then may best be understood as exactly what they are, a wall built to house, obstruct or protect the artist or performer. There is a tension then between the attempt to read or interpret this work, and its shear unreadability; its determination to conceal, embodied in the battered but defiant exterior it displays.