Stockroom Kyneton, gallery one
13 August/ 18 September 2022

MARK RODDA
Meander Glade

Mark Rodda’s recent exhibitions have featured a strange dialogue between his figurative and abstract works. At times these two forms converge, threatening to become a single entity. In other times, such as in Meander Glade, they seem poles apart. Mander Glade shows little overlap between the figurative and non-representational work featured, it’s as if they were painted by two different artists. The artist could surely simplify things if he decided to abandon one or the other, but, as if choosing between children, Mark Rodda would not dream of prioritising one over the other. If this was an exercise in logic there might be a problem, luckily an art exhibition is a safe place where logic is not a prerequisite.

Our world and the lives of humans can be messy, contradictory and often a bit uncouth. I’m comfortable to have my exhibitions share some of these elements.

Mark Rodda is stylistically restless. He is continuously searching for a style, or styles, that balance improvisational flexibility, with results that hold up to scrutiny for (hopefully) decades or centuries.

Meander Glade has a lighter touch in its figurative work. There is more emphasis on a transparent sheen, with most underpainting clearly visible. This is balanced by the quite solid and hard-edged features of most of the non-representational images.

Through the exhibition, the figurative paintings are mostly improvised, with the highs, lows, and unexpected detours that this can bring. The abstract works are in general more rigidly planned, with most of the creativity happening at the design stage. In these works, the artist sees himself as creating more like a chef or scientist, where much of the artistic satisfaction occurs when the painting emerges from the ‘imaginary/metaphorical’ studio oven.

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