NO MAN'S LAND

• Dan Sibley

PRESS RELEASE

“This series of paintings is built from a model of art to form what I describe as an art by-product. This element has been the core of my art practice in dealing with ideas surrounding sampling and appropriation. I have chosen to appropriate the dot in this body of work, which is commonly used in indigenous Australian art.

The depictions of golf holes demonstrate the correlation between the objectives in golf and the objectives of conquest, where the aim is to cover a set amount of terrain in the fewest possible moves. They also make reference to land development and commercial enterprise.

Although there is undeniable reference to indigenous art in this series of work, they are also removed. The dot is used in Aboriginal art often as a means to censor and disguise information that is of a privileged nature. It acts as a type of filter.

I found it interesting to note that dots also make up a large majority of media that we receive today through television, computers and printed materials. The dot matrix of this media constructs the filter between primary and secondary information.” 

Dan Sibley August 2006