David Harley, Still from Returntogreen, 2021. Courtesy: the artist and MARS Gallery, Melbourne.

David Harley uses digital processes to extend what he terms ‘free-form’ abstract painting. He imbues the synthetic and cool nature of the digital with the personal and the idiosyncratic. His tools vary from working with VR headsets CAD programs, wall spray painting, large format printing, to motion graphics animations. He is interested in the paradox of abstract painting and illusion and likes to explore the possible space behind the surface illusion of the ‘canvas’. The confines of the nature of the various software or platform he uses become his material.

In this exhibition, David revisits a work Beforegreen, which was initially shown in his PhD completion exhibition at the Margaret Lawrence Gallery in 2015. The work is a 2d projection with a multi-layered surround-sound track comprising sounds that David voiced emulating the accumulated behaviours and spatial dynamics of the elements in the constructed virtual 3d model, from which it is sourced. Using software often associated with CGI for the film he has used it here for assembling a collection of smudges, lines and wireframes.

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