Eliot Coates
Analogue
31 May - 6 June 2019
Analogue
31 May - 6 June 2019
Analogue. Text by Kari Schmidt
Analogue technology uses signals or information represented by a variable physical quantity, such as a continuous wave that changes over time and space. This is in contrast to digital technology, which operates with a binary language of 1 or 0. Within the context of Coates’ exhibition, the term ‘analogue’ references the way in which his use of colour is similarly variable and continuous, with colour operating as a spectrum in his paintings. A seam of colour may be bright and suddenly brilliant, before gradually segueing into other hues such that our eyes are drawn across the painting’s surface again and again. Coates uses an abstract language that is still and yet changeable, soft but also structured - drawing us into long contemplation.
The title is also apposite in that analogue technology provides us with a sensual experience, rather like a painting. The technology is associated with tactile and material objects and experienced by multiple of the senses – as when you place a vinyl record on a turntable; wind up a film camera or wear an analogue watch which physically represents time as it’s passing. Coates’ work similarly necessitates a physical attendance. It requires you to move around these paintings and to navigate them spatially; to see how the colours change when viewed from multiple perspectives and to recognise these paintings as material objects with their own weight and presence. And yet, there is also a delightful play in Coates’ use of colour that introduces a certain lightness and levity into the work. This tension between weight and light keeps us looking, long after the first glance.
Analogue offers us a deeply necessary experience – one of stillness, sensuality and awareness. The exhibition in this way functions as an anti-digital statement, inviting us to step away from the perennial distraction characterising modern life and to participate in a deep and sustained engagement.
''Analogue'', Eliot Coates (Olga Gallery)
In a series of beautiful abstract paintings, Eliot Coates depicts the gradual shifting and blending of light and colour. There are no hard edges, no borders at which one colour ends and another begins, and the use of oil on aluminium creates a warm glow which subtly changes the works' appearance with changes in the light.
The artist has created a series of strong colour-field abstract paintings, which are somehow as much Turner as they are Rothko. Light meanders and slides across the canvas, producing subtle shifts as reminiscent of ambient music as it is of painting.
As with ambient music, what seems innocuous background becomes hypnotic, holding our gaze and drawing our attention to the gradual changes in the surface.
As the exhibition's title suggests, there is a deliberate attempt to get away from the digital dichotomy of on-off, yes-no technology, in which colour and form can be reduced to distinct uniform packages. Ironically, the exhibition poses the question of whether this is ever achievable.
Our visual system relies on electrical impulses to create our view of the world, and scientists continue to argue over the wave or package nature of light. However, whatever the answer to those mysteries, the artist has achieved the aim of producing fine, calm, sensual works.
James Dignan, Otago Daily Times. June 7 2019
In a series of beautiful abstract paintings, Eliot Coates depicts the gradual shifting and blending of light and colour. There are no hard edges, no borders at which one colour ends and another begins, and the use of oil on aluminium creates a warm glow which subtly changes the works' appearance with changes in the light.
The artist has created a series of strong colour-field abstract paintings, which are somehow as much Turner as they are Rothko. Light meanders and slides across the canvas, producing subtle shifts as reminiscent of ambient music as it is of painting.
As with ambient music, what seems innocuous background becomes hypnotic, holding our gaze and drawing our attention to the gradual changes in the surface.
As the exhibition's title suggests, there is a deliberate attempt to get away from the digital dichotomy of on-off, yes-no technology, in which colour and form can be reduced to distinct uniform packages. Ironically, the exhibition poses the question of whether this is ever achievable.
Our visual system relies on electrical impulses to create our view of the world, and scientists continue to argue over the wave or package nature of light. However, whatever the answer to those mysteries, the artist has achieved the aim of producing fine, calm, sensual works.
James Dignan, Otago Daily Times. June 7 2019