Michael Carney is an interdisciplinary artist found most often working with paint, clay, digital and virtual reality mediums.

His practice began in 2009 as a painting undergraduate at the University of South Australia where he was introduced to ceramics as his minor. By 2016 he had completed a Masters by Research (Visual Arts) where both ceramics and painting became the predominant processes in his exhibition practice.

Both ceramics and paintings blend contemporary and antiquated aesthetics to present work that plays with notions of time in flux. Works that are rendered or figurative are often shattered with a gestural flourish forcing the viewer to continue to explore the pictorial plane for a familiar foothold. His work stops short of overt explanation, whilst ontological themes and philosophies are presented, he prefers to activate the viewer’s own contemplation within the broader theme.Description text goes here

Stockroom Kyneton, Gallery One
15 March / 02 May 2021

MICHAEL CARNEY
Roadside Picnic: past, present and future all at once

The title roadside picnic comes from the 1971 Russian science fiction novel of the same name. In a section of the book the discovery of alien artefacts that hold mystical powers is discussed. One character ponders deeply why the objects were left for us. The other suggests that whilst the leftover objects could be powerful and valuable to humans, they were most likely broken pieces of spacecraft or food discarded after a roadside picnic on the aliens’ travels across the universe. This parable exposes how as humans we elevate our importance in how we see the world. There is a sublime terror felt when comparing the life span of the human race in relation to the incomprehensible scale of this ever expanding infinite universe. This Exhibition is a playful exploration of time and our relation to it. Human concepts of an end or apocalypse, nuclear mythology, and speculative science fiction are firmly embedded in this body of work.

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