MATTHEW HOPKINS, MARY MACDOUGALL & TOM POLO
FACIAL
11 Jul 2012—28 Jul 2012

Facial explores varied and overlapping approaches to portraiture through painting, drawing and installation. Matthew Hopkins, Mary MacDougall and Tom Polo produce portraits between abstraction and simple representational forms, often using repetition and pattern to forge changes and celebrate subjects undergoing visual transformations. As parts of the artists’ wider practices, the subjects in Facial are rendered in distinct ways; on paper with smoke and chewing gum, on domestic bisque tiles and glass and as painted placards, reminiscent of props or masks on sticks.

Working with a kind of damaged new age approach, Matthew Hopkins’ current work explores concepts of transcendence, and the beyond, rendering them grotesque, and absurd through a range of media and outcomes. Hopkins is represented by Gallery 9, Sydney, and has exhibited locally and internationally at galleries such as the MCA, Sydney, Performance Space, Sydney, Roslyn Oxley9, Sydney, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, Utopian Slumps, Melbourne, and the New Museum, New York.

Mary MacDougall paints on ceramic tiles and glass to explore subjects in transition and ambiguous spatial propositions. She has held solo exhibitions at db and Sheffer Gallery and participated in exhibitions at Breenspace, Alaska, TCB and Rear View. She also collects and represents news images based on visual similarities on a blog called Picture Mound.

Tom Polo’s recent practice uses extensions of painting to examine notions of anxiety and expectation associated with success, failure and the pursuit for desired outcomes. Polo has participated in exhibitions at Gallery 9; Campbelltown Arts Centre; Perth Institute of Contemporary Art; Grantpirrie; ARTSPACE, Sydney; ACME Project Space, London and Gertrude Contemporary.