Doubt and Certainty

Elizabeth Thomson, Darryn George, Christine Boswijk, Chris Charteris and Niki Hastings McFall are artists recognised for a serious and dedicated approach to their art. These are artists who achieve the essence of something refined and pared down to just what is needed. Speaking through the medium of the plane, line, form or surface, they define something, but not necessarily of something in particular. Much like the white paintings of US artist Robert Ryman, which the artist started in the 1950s and is still painting. The repetition is not about the ‘whiteness’ or mere sameness. It is about difference. Similarly, Elizabeth Thomson, George and Christine Boswijk are producing paintings or sculptures about light and surface and multiple ways of seeing the same thing by refracting light off their choice of surfaces or form. The colour, line or surface is different because it is presented in different ways.

With a different approach but similar quest, Chris Charteris and Niki Hastings McFall pare back cultural narrative to its most essential elements, with their trajectory on Va - spaces between. Their discourse raises more questions than answers and challenges us to embrace 'doubt' as a desirable state in our raison d'etre.

These artist’s attempt the ideal; to be expertly under-cooked so as to challenge their audience to take things further, to look more at that nothing and come up with their own something.

Colin McCahon once painted the words "And what is faith ? faith gives substance to our hopes and makes us certain of realities we do not see". (Colin McCahon, The Testament of Scripture, 1979). If we substitute the word 'faith' with doubt we begin to understand the certainty of doubt, and the narrative of this quest evoked by these artists.

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