In Genevieve Felix Reynolds’ new suite of works, medium is mediator between two dimensional and three dimensional. Physical cultural artefacts, from the Neolithic to the contemporary, are incorporated into painted oil compositions via glossy, industrial steel shelves that jut off the wall, extending painting into the third dimension.
Mirroring the language of museums and image archives, artefacts are presented in formal relation to one another, disconnected from their geographic and temporal origins. This collage-like approach to composition allows time, alongside space, to be churned and compressed. Graphic scaffolds of display synthesise abstraction with photographic and physical references from the past and present; incongruous elements that reveal a magpie-like approach to source material. Acting as a sort of instinct-driven archivist, Felix Reynolds mines databases, museums, digital media and antiques stores for objects and imagery, amassing a personal collection of cultural artefacts – ancient, Modernist, handmade, mass-produced, physical, flat. Integrated though painting, they highlight the flurry of spatial and temporal experience in the 21st century. A solution to this overwhelming breadth of visual information is quietly proffered: one’s own coordinates in space and time. Looking – slow and intimate – is a moment of calm.
Genevieve Felix Reynolds has exhibited regularly across Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne and participated in group shows in Los Angeles and New York. She has been a finalist in the Churchie Emerging Art Prize, the Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize, The Elaine Bermingham National Watercolour Prize and the Grace Cossington Smith Art Prize. In 2019 Felix Reynolds won residency award in Sunshine Coast Art Prize, and the Paddington Young Artist Award in 2016. Awarded residencies include Eastside International, Los Angeles and Palazzo Monti Residency Program, Brescia, Italy; collections include Artbank and Australian Catholic University. Felix Reynolds is a Masters of Fine Art candidate at UNSW Art & Design. The Flattening of Everything is her third solo exhibition at Galerie pompom.
