CREATION SCIENCE

This publication is the catalogue of Chris Hanrahan's exhibition entitled Creation Science at Gertrude Contemporary in 2010.

Chris Hanrahan’s practice employs a very peculiar form of alchemy, creating work out of a whole lot of nothing. Holes, light, empty vessels, transparent containers, crude structures that parade their rudimentary construction and purloined texts that allude to stillness, emptiness and the impossible pursuit of perfection.

For his exhibition at Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces, titled Creation Science Hanrahan has assumed the role of ‘The Seeker’. The exhibition emulated the Enlightenment explorer’s dual sentiments of curiousity, discovery and confusion. Centering on a video work created at the former London residence of Captain James Cook, which is now home to the production of high quality artists’ oil paints, Hanrahan uses this site to highlight the ever-present undertones of failure and uncertainty within colonial conquest. The video sees Hanrahan in dirty oversized overalls, seemingly flummoxed by the peculiar science of artists’ oil paint production, with a viscous lurid outcome in stark contrast to the paint factory’s decrepit blandness.

 Alongside this video Hanrahan exhibited a suite of new drawing, sculpture and neon works. These new works chart a course headlong into the realm of exploration, operating in full knowledge of the possibility for failure that pervades any intent of endeavor. Indeed, these works identify the curious necessity for this enduring quandary within all modes of exploration, whether the motivation is the glass half-full or half-empty, the intrepid explorer’s desire is only ever matched by inevitable disappointment.

In Hanrahan’s practice it is still unclear whether he is attempting to develop a universally applicable formula that explains all mysteries, or whether he is merely a backyard tinkerer. However, what is clear is Hanrahan’s enduring delight in the dichotomy between desire and deceit, beauty and corruption, belief and skepticism.

 Hanrahan’s exhibitions include: The Seeker, Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney; New Acquisitions, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; ECR (with Marley Dawson), Performance Space, Sydney 2008; MAN, Penrith Regional Art Gallery, Sydney 2008; Looking Out, Macquarie University Art Gallery, Sydney 2008; Helen Lempriere Travelling Art Scholarship, Artspace, Sydney 2004. He is represented by Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney and has supported the Parramatta Eels for 28 years.

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