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Particle Fever
Introduction
VIRTUAL TOUR
In The History of Particula° Shadows: Dion Horstmans by Abbra Kotlarczyk 2018
Don’t think, dance. Light. Dark. Light. Dark light dark light dark dark dark...The irregularities of wave motion on the ocean are attributable in part to the fact that two or more patterns of wave movements may prevail at the same place and time, superimposed upon one another.[1]
With some liberties of omission taken, the above represents a micro-section of a much larger project in experimental prose: fragments, motes, the year 1979, the American writer and activist Lucy Lippard. The sub-text to this early novel follows the premise of collapsing a three dimensional object onto a flat surface.[2] Throughout the novel Lippard engages her protagonists—A, D, E and B—in dot-to-dot drawing as if a Sol LeWitt scaffold: I See/You Mean.
The superimposition of narratives, much like the irregular wave movements above, are not impositions, are not foistings at all. Much like the simultaneous existence of negative and positive form in a steel sculpture that sits steady and yet in heathen motion to the wall that witnesses it, there is a plumpness to be found in the inclusion of parts that reach to other tenses, to other traditions and to other apparitions of urgency. The fullness of experience is found in narratives that lay down beside one another; in passages that must transition. A non-linear narrative, though fully comprised of linear components, just subset in multiple parts.
On the surface of it, Dion Horstmans sculptures are carefully codified forms, admixed to represent formulaic variants of geometric shapes taken from the world, both perceptible and hidden. While there is truth in this rubric, the multiple components—we could think of these as A, D, E and B—come together through the bucolic sparks of a well versed welding machine. Like the monumental clash of molecular particles that this body of work references, Horstmans works are produced in a microcosm of compressed energy and steel datum. Horstmans’ forms connote a steel syllabary expressive of a steady fever, host to a progression of powder-coated particles that gather in slick gradient.
Widely noted of Horstmans strong hold on graphic geometric abstraction is his immersion in contemporary urban contexts together with his Pacific Islander heritage: his father is Niuean and his mother is a first generation Kiwi, with his formative years spent between the Cook Islands and New Zealand. His need to create extensive and subtle variations out of a lexicon of expressively lived lines—both cylindrical and flattened—brings to mind what the artist Camae Ayewa says: that every shadow has a history.[3] Light. Dark. Light. Dark light dark light dark dark dark…
While Horstmans is a maker of innumerable preparatory sketches, his final works are often made in a plucky and energetic fashion out of a kind of intuited dot-to-dot alphabet of lines in space. Don’t think, dance. According to G.W.F. Hegel (courtesy of Justin Clemens), alphabets “give stability and independence to the inward realm of mental life.”[4] Clemens makes his own assertion when he states that “an alphabet enables sound, vision and meaning to be fused in a handful of little black letters that contain and order the world.”[5] In a way this is much of the essence of formal artmaking as to the order of the world that Horstmans works inhabit: the body performs an accrual of formal variation in order for the mind to wander the history of each shadow cast by a succession of little black marks on a white wall. On return to Lippard, what she shows us through a multitude of narrative variance is that “the map leaves out and distorts a great deal, and just because of this it is the best possible picture of what it wants to show.”[6]
I See [/] You Mean. I See [therefore] You Mean. I See [!] - You Mean...[?]Footnotes:
° Particula is Latin for particle, meaning “little part”
[1] Lucy Lippard, “I See/You Mean”, in F. R. David: Inverted Commas, Spring 2017, ed. Will Holder and Riet Wijnen (Berlin: KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Glasgow: Uh Books, 2017), 93-102.
[2] “Interview Questions from Victor & Hester on Rowena Cade”, What (Was) Is Happening, accessed January 18, 2018. http://whatwasishappening.tumblr.com/.
[3] “Camae Ayewa/Moor Mother”, The Kitchen, accessed January 24, 2018, http://thekitchen.org/event/camae-ayewa-moor-mother.
[4] Justin Clemens, “The Analphabeast: Identity and Relation in the Work of Gordon Bennett”, in Minimal Domination (Melbourne: Surpluss Pty Ltd, 2011), 81.
[5] Justin Clemens, ibid, 80.
[6] Lucy Lippard, ibid, 97.
Informed by the stylistic principles of geometric abstraction and the bold graphic quality of his Pacific Islander heritage, Dion Horstmans’ multi-dimensional wall sculptures gesture toward a love of the energetic and dynamic. Captivated by the act of repetitive pattern making, Horstmans ceaselessly twists and shifts his points of reference, playing with ideas of scale and creating new translations.
Horstmans dedication to artistic practice has resulted in a number of successful solo exhibitions in Melbourne, Sydney and Asia, as well as participation in several festivals and group exhibitions, including the Vivid Festival, Sculpture by the Sea, Artisans in the Park, Sydney Botanical Gardens and several curated shows at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre. He has completed numerous commercial commissions, including major public art commissions such as Super Sonic for Collins Square, Melbourne with Hassell/Walker, Elektromaster for Central Park in Sydney and Prismatic for the Ibis Hotel in Brisbane. Horstmans participated in the 2012 L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival Windows by Design and has had his work featured in Vogue Living, Harpers Bazaar, and The Age (melbourne) magazines. Horstmans work is represented in numerous national and international collections including Artbank and The Justin Art House Museum. He has been exhibiting with FLG since 2009.