Joel Arthur, Behind the Casino, 2022. Oil, acrylic and alkyd on canvas, 153 × 183cm. Courtesy: the artist and Gallery 9.

Joel Arthur considers the role of perception and illusionism through representation and abstraction. Arthur’s work began as an investigation of various approaches to the field of still life, observing and describing distortions that occur when looking through glass, water and other refractive and reflective materials. His focus on the optical experience delivered by these distortions and their subsequent translation into painting is the driving interest of his works. Through Arthur’s practice he focus on different modes of description, which have developed in conjunction with a more accentuated abstract pictorial language. These abstract works consider how an optical experience can be generated in the painting itself, while continuing to alert the viewer of the work’s physicality and painterly mark.

These paintings are transitory landscapes that have been inhabited, constructed and used as a place of meeting. They are artificial yet natural zones which are designed to provide relief from the concrete world of the city yet despite the controls placed upon it, activities and structures emerge briefly then disappear again. These paintings are theatrical in their staging of an event, though what that event really is remains ambiguous.  – Joel Arthur