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Press release
Bella Vista - beautiful view. In this latest exhibition of works Janenne Eaton uses the term somewhat ironically, maybe ominously.
Beauty, as it is found in art and nature entices us and invites us to experience it. It is the unadulterated pleasure it brings that fuels us to embrace the pursuit of it. A beautiful vista is, in the western contemporary interpretation, a landscape, open and endless, a space of natural unbridled charm and wonderment. In opposition Eaton presents us with a vista; with a beauty that has been tamed and touched, maybe tainted. Like a row of pylons through a mountain range, Eaton’s vista reflects the visual impression of contemporary civilization.
Within the exhibition a multitude of familiar visual devices: binary code, cursive text, symbols, targets, colour wheels and bullet holes all glide and gleam through the electric field of Eaton’s gloss enamel surfaces. Eaton’s background in archaeology and social history is the key here as she presents a series of dazzling paintings recording the semiotics of modern communication and consumption; a world of paradoxes where one might die from exhaustion trying to escape the rat race as ‘only sleep cures fatigue’. The vista from Eaton’s window, with it’s bamboo blind gently tapping in the night breeze, is one of fading coral reefs, of road signs and road trips, of dried up creek beds, of ripe plump rain drops, of twinkling stars and electric, luscious colours. Eaton’s Bella Vista is definitely worth the road trip.
Janenne Eaton is currently a finalist for the 2009 Clemenger Contemporary Art Award, NGV.
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