TIPPING POINT

About

How is an image, an idea or a material reigned-in and controlled? At what point is that control relinquished and abandoned? And what formal and conceptual residues does this internal challenge leave in the work? This show questions how different artists tackle these opposing aspects and tensions within their work, continually shifting their point of balance and reference.
Describing both the stage in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass and the toppling effect of weight added to a balanced object, the term 'tipping point' embodies a sense of impending change, signaling the arrival of a shift or juncture in the fine balance between harmony and disorder, control and chaos. It describes the very moment when a threshold is reached where the existing equilibrium threatens to spiral out of control.
It is where work exists with respect to this threshold and how its boundaries are neogiated, circumvented or challenged head-on that forms the central concern of this show. Lying along a spectrum of experience, Tipping Point looks at the tensions inherent in these varying states of balance and seeks to explore the slippages that occur between them.
The exhibition includes work by both established and emerging artists, and contains a diverse range of media: from collage (Danny Rolph), to sculpture (Jessie Flood-Paddock), drawing (Agnes Martin and Barry Thompson) and painting (Mia Taylor,
Estelle Thompson, Sarah Douglas and Mie Olise Kjaergaard).
Purdy Hicks is pleased to announce that we will be starting our 2008 programme with this externally curated exhibition, which aims to bring a new perspective into the gallery.