Works: Under 30 Seconds and Things That Fit Together

Nathan Gray Things That Fit Together (detail) (2014)

Nathan Gray’s sculptural work Things That Fit Together (2014) is precisely as the name suggests. Random household items which snake their way through the gallery space connected only by the fact that one end fits into another end. Half empty wine and soft drink bottles are connected by lines of hose and pipe which are propped up by empty tin cans and kitchen utensils. The result is a fragile ecosystem one must tip-toe around to navigate the gallery.

Works: Under 30 Seconds (2014) is a collection of very Erwin Worm-esque short films that utilise everyday objects in weird and surreal ways. Earphones which buzz with music are shoved up nostrils and hands are slipped into a pair of runners. The stand out is a head and shoulders shot of a man sneezing followed by the quiet, awkward aftermath of this weird bodily function. It is hypnotising and beautiful and completely normal and abnormal all at the same time. The simplicity of this act is so universally human yet so absurd.

Unfortunately Gray’s sculptural work lacks this compelling dichotomy. The work creates a sense of disconnection but not in an interesting way, in fact it’s kind of boring, a result of the connections being blatantly obvious; they just ‘fit together’ as the title suggests. The items seem to be whatever is in arms reach at Bunning’s or on the kitchen bench and have little personal connection to the audience or the artist other than our ability to easily identify them.

There are some exciting concepts within Gray’s exhibition that get lost in execution. Some individual sections of the sculpture are quite beautiful if they are given some space to breathe. This space is also necessary to engage the audience by giving them the opportunity to create their own narratives and connections. An innate human response to randomness is to find patterns within chaos, even if that pattern results in meaninglessness.

Sisyphus was condemned to push a boulder uphill just to have it roll back down and for the task to begin again anew. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus writes that the futile act is one of strange beauty and ambition, a stubborn repetition of a pattern regardless of the meaninglessness. In Gray’s work the act of recontextualising these objects is definitely more engaging than the finality of the sculptures, just as the act of Sisyphus pushing a boulder uphill is where the beauty lies and not within the boulder itself.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars