ASH KEATING: PRESSURE
25 Nov 2023 – 17 Mar 2024
Internationally renowned Melbourne based contemporary artist Ash Keating’s major new exhibition PRESSURE opens 25 November 2023 at Bunjil Place.
Known globally for using paint-filled fire extinguishers to make spectacular large-scale outdoor paintings, he has over the last decade also cultivated a studio-based practice, working on canvases that allow for greater experimentation within the controlled conditions of an indoor space.
Presented as one work in nine parts, PRESSURE is a sequence of paintings scaled to encompass and invite the viewer into a field of shifting colour and exuberant gesture.
Drawing on the tradition of action painting, that welcomes spontaneity and improvisation, Keating has refined a distinct methodology of intuitive actions and mark making using varying propulsion and gravity-based techniques.
Looking back to the raw energy of his site-specific outdoor paintings of the early 2000s, Keating has approached PRESSURE as a testing ground – a new body of work created as a celebration of experimentation, that draws upon 20 years of practice and the memories deeply held in body and mind.
Over the past two decades, Keating has refined a methodology of improvised actions and gestural mark making using varying propulsion and gravity-based painting techniques. Many of his layered compositions are created through the application of paint and water to surfaces with pressurised fire extinguishers. The effect is not only that of running and dripping paint, but also a replication and acknowledgment of the natural systems at play around us.
The exhibition will be complemented by a cinematic film tracing the mesmerizing details of artist and paint in motion during the making process.
In an Australian first, LIVE PRESSURE will see Ash Keating paint live on stage with Ryan Richie and a 12-piece ensemble on Saturday 10 February 2024.
Painting, film and music collide in a mesmerizing process of energetic colour and movement. In dialogue with the painting’s transformational process, the sensory experience will be widened through lighting and the dynamic music improvisations of acclaimed composer producer Ryan Ritchie and a 12-piece ensemble. Keating and Richie have collaborated on numerous projects since 2003, this will be their most ambitious undertaking to date.
About the artist
Ash Keating works within an expanded contemporary field, through painting, performance, sculpture, video and intervention. Keating’s large outdoor murals, created with paint-filled fire extinguishers, can be found across Melbourne.
Keating has exhibited extensively in galleries and created numerous large-scale, site-responsive art projects in Australia and internationally since 2004. He has undertaken numerous painting commissions in public spaces, including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2013), the Adelaide Festival Centre (2015), Sydney’s Domain (2018), Museum Langmatt, Baden, Switzerland (2023).
His works are held in numerous public and private collections including the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne and Artbank, Melbourne and Sydney.
There are a range of public programs to get to know the artist and understand his way of working, these programs follow the media release.
Ash Keating: PRESSURE, 25 November 2023 until 17 March 2024 at Bunjil Place, 2 Patrick Northeast Drive, Narre Warren. www.bunjilplace.com.au
Caption: Ash Keating in studio. Photo Credit: Michael Pham. Installation image, Ash Keating: PRESSURE, 25 November 2023 until 17 March 2024, Bunjil Place, 2 Patrick Northeast Drive, Narre Warren. Photo credit: Mathew Stanton
