In June this year, Buxton Contemporary announced its ‘Light Source commissions’, an initiative to support the development of a series of six new artistic projects as part of the museum’s expanded digital program. The first commission was by Melbourne-based artist Stuart Ringholt – ‘Looking at a painting without clothes on in the safety of your own home’.

Looking at a painting without clothes on in the safety of your own home by Stuart Ringholt refigures his well known naked museum tours for the age of isolation. Comprised of a flat-packed painting and instructional guide, the work requires participants to assemble the artwork and stick it to a wall in their living space. Participants are then encouraged to remove their clothes and sit on a chair or on the floor and experience the fields of colour that constitute the painting. The nude viewing can be experienced solo or shared with members of your household and others, as social distancing measures relax.

“… the viewing of the painting can best be described as playing ‘Twister for the thinking nude’ … typically, the museum visitor’s job is to look at the nude in its environs … but this self-assembled painting functions in the reverse. No longer does one look at a nude; instead you are the nude”, says Stuart Ringholt.

Ringholt’s humorous and timely new work is a limited edition of 500. To participate, each individual needs to register at the Buxton Contemporary website. Once registered, the participant will then receive a flat-pack of materials with an instructional guide through the mail.

An incisive and humorous conceptual artist with an absurdist bent, Ringholt’s practice explores social themes such as fear and embarrassment, often represented through nonsensical situations or amateur self-help environments.

Spanning more than twenty years Ringholt’s practice encompasses numerous media and forms including performance, video, drawing, collage, sculpture, collaborative workshops and nude tours and discos.

Through its new Light Source commissions, Buxton Contemporary has commissioned and is supporting the development of six new projects. The participating artists have been invited to produce ambitious new work that will be presented virtually, or that have an online dimension of some kind.

Light Source provides artists with an opportunity to think about and create work in different presentation formats that potentially might have a second life outside of the virtual environment, or lead to further research and artistic enquiry.

What does it mean for your whole body to be in proximity to purple and black? What does it mean for your head to be in red and your feet in yellow? What does it mean for your partner or family member to be in black and you in purple?

STUART RINGHOLT

What I am effectively asking is for you to relate colour combinations to your feelings. For example, if red intrinsically symbolises passion, and yellow summer, what does it mean for your head to be thinking passionately while your feet are experiencing summer? If red symbolises wealth and yellow cowardice, what does it mean for your head to be thinking about wealth and your feet to be experiencing cowardice? How can feet experience cowardice, you ask? Think of what feet symbolise and mean for you – walking or immobility, to name just two possibilities. Therefore, the question I am really posing is: What does it mean for your head to be thinking about wealth as you move through the world with cowardice?

STUART RINGHOLT

Geometric Abstraction and Naturist Tours

“One of my first memories of experiencing geometric abstraction was as an eight-year-old while sailing. My father was crewing a yacht named Robin, and the side of the hull was emblazoned with a bright decal comprising three layers of block colour in a rectangular shape that looked like a flag. The decal fascinated me.

Forty years on, I look at the photo of the yacht and imagine it keeling over in heavy winds, dunking the decal underwater. What a sight this box of colour would be for the many jellyfish, fish and gulls of the Swan River below!

Thirty years after my yachting experience, I found myself contemplating geometric abstraction during a series of naturist tours of art exhibitions.”

Stuart Ringholt

For its second Light Source commissions, Buxton Contemporary has commissioned Radical Acts by Melbourne artist Laresa Kosloff. The video work is a darkly humorous and critical short film assembled and edited entirely from corporate video stock footage sourced on the internet.

Radical Acts tells a fantastical story about frustrated climate scientists who come up with a plan to ensure they are no longer ignored. The scientists create a new pathogen and clandestinely distribute it to corporate offices via indoor plants. The pathogen makes corporate workers less productive and more open to possibilities beyond relentless growth and the profit motive…

The film can be watched here.

Buxton Contemporary is featured in the BMW ART GUIDE by INDEPENDENT COLLECTORS.