John Dahlsen From Floor to Wall
The exhibition’s title is indicative of the evolving nature of Dahlsen’s work. After a productive period of assembling works from objects literally found on the ground; which were then displayed on the floor, in wall mounted frames and in installation.
Dahlsen’s work has undergone a transformation through the use of recycled plastic bags and digital imagery.
Dahlsen’s earlier works were assembled from objects that arrived with the incoming tide; left high and dry at the highest point of the beach they had been jettisoned, tossed, moulded, abraded, pummeled and rounded by the sun, the wind and water.
These objects were deposited haphazardly; each wave bringing new possibilities for the artist and creating an archaeological record that charted the rise and fall of chance, and the ebb and flow of our lives. One person’s trash became another’s treasure.
One can picture Dahlsen as this peculiarly animated creature bobbing up and down along the beach collecting, sorting and imagining, then leaving with the spoils to construct another day.
The artist mimics the activities of sea birds as they go about their existence jabbing, picking, chasing and prying. The work is physically demanding; so much to see and collect!
Dahlsen’s work is alchemical in that found objects are transformed from the mundane to the extraordinary and mystical. In between is the artist’s aesthetic intuition and determined will. He encourages us to see beauty in the ordinary.
Having moved from floor to wall, to ceiling and beyond, the objects take a dramatic turn from flotsam to metaphors. Works such as Womb, Lode and Catch speak of creation and reaping in the same breath; we reap what we sow. The Womb is a reference to the nurturing nature of the sea with connotations of procreation.
The sea disgorges or gives birth to these objects onto the beach, and like any good parent the artist nurtures them to completion.
The Lode refers to the artist’s methods of collecting; he mines the sea for discarded objects and turns them into treasures. The work is a visual reference to trawling and the tradition of beach netting. It is also a pun and play on words: Lode/Load.
The sea is Dahlsen’s ‘mother lode’ and from the sea he gathers his ‘load’. These works refer to the immensity of what is discarded and the usefulness of what is found…if only to the artist.
To the rest of us it’s rubbish that litters our open spaces.
Dahlsen’s most recent work, digital prints on canvas directly refer to the earlier assembled works. The artist is excited, not only by the ability to use new technology, but also by the process of collecting, assembling, photographing and then packing away.
Every work is a ‘one off’; no reassembling will ever match or even come close to the original installation. Each work is tightly packed, producing an impenetrable wall of objects, the effect is dizzying as patterns appear and reappear making it hard to focus on the arrangement.
Objects will unexpectedly appear, become recognizable and then disappear until you suddenly realize that there are spaces between each carefully arranged piece.
Your eye tries to focus on the seemingly empty spaces that are pregnant with possibility and mystery. Are these windows into another world that is colliding with ours? How many layers are there? What would happen if I picked one out, would it collapse like a house of cards? There is an order to this chaos.
Chaos is a natural order but is often described as “complete disorder” or “utter confusion”1. Dahlsen’s material seemingly arrives haphazardly but in reality is the result of the natural order of things. Dahlsen’s art, however, is not a result of randomly placing objects. Each work speaks of creating order out of chaos.
In a sense Dahlsen’s work fits neatly into Chaos Theory, which asserts, “ random phenomena have an underlying order”2. Dahlsen’s art is like the cosmos; evolving and regenerating. Creating new worlds out of the detritus of old ones. The black holes in this cosmos are the spaces in between where you can lose yourself.
Have a safe journey!
Gary Corbett Director Tweed River Art Gallery
