We are delighted to bring IN THE BALANCE to Brisbane. “We live in a post millennial art world that is connected virtually, especially through social media.  Images circulate the planet within seconds and in many ways, visual art itself is changing and adapting.  Our concept is to bring that connectivity not only virtually but physically. These are two world class painters working with similar ideas, their thinking epitomizes the voice of a new generation of artists and as a gallery we are responding. These are exciting times.” Says Langridge.

Paul Weiner’s work deals with the 2012 Aurora theatre shooting, which occurred in the community where the artist grew up and lived at the time of the massacre. The paintings reference the redacted court documents that followed the shooting, their compositions directly lifted from the blacked out and censored court documents. Since the trial, the paintings have metaphorically evolved to comment on the violence that now dominates the US media. In the studio Paul drags and throws his paintings across the studio to accumulate the detritus of these actions. He also slices, steps on and beats them until they are blemished and bruised. The visual dichotomy between these minimal swaths of black from the redacted documents and the abused, gritty appearance of the canvas develops into a clumsy paint handling juxtaposed against distinct and sharp lines. In this sense, the paintings explore uncharted territory for the sublime: flat and minimal yet dirty, painterly, and violent.

In response to Paul, Kimberly Rowe has created virtually weightless, almost transparent paintings that are as full as Paul's while offering not its opposite but it's complement. Each painting is an evolution or expansion of an idea spawned between imagining and doing. Often working on the floor, Rowe placed sheer fabric down on top of residue from previous projects and began painting.  When she lifted up the work she found dust, dirt, pigment, staples, and even a screw embedded in the painting and I decided to keep it.  Since then she has left all of the debris on the ground knowing that each painting will be moved a little bit forward by those that came before it.  The paintings reveal an ability to be not only light and airy, almost as if it is made only of its essential self, but also that a painting can be two-sided, demonstrating a culmination of Rowe's years long conceptual investigation.”

Written by Tove Langridge