Tim Melville is pleased to open the 2019 gallery programme with an exhibition by George Hajian.
Bent & Blurred combines a series of framed paper collage works with an immersive automated sculptural installation from the artist’s 2018 Doctoral exhibition at Auckland University’s Elam School of Fine Arts.
Hajian uses material from magazines and pop culture to create the extraordinarily seductive collages that are solidifying his reputation. By cutting and slicing images of the male body, and by reassembling and meticulously weaving them onto sections of wire mesh, Hajian sabotages and disrupts the viewer’s gaze in order to question contemporary cultural ideals.
How is our unreflective consumption of this seemingly endless flow of imagery affecting our view of the world? How are our expectations and aesthetics changing, both in terms of the ways we look at each other and the ways we look at ourselves? How do we read male beauty?
As Julia Teale writes in the exhibition’s accompanying essay: “Hajian has found the means to reveal the distance we have put between our embodied selves and our imaged selves in contemporary life … and how the image in modernity, so easily manipulated through technology, gains a magnificent life of its own.”
Photography: Kallan MacLeod
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Rocker Assembly
2017
Acrylic screen-printing ink and spray paint on vinyl
1200mm H x 1500mm W
GEORGE HAJIAN
Stretch with a Ball
2018
Rollage with found printed paper and galvanised wire
475mm H x 395mm W
GEORGE HAJIAN
Blurred Blues
2018
Mixed rollage with found printed paper and galvanised wire
525mm H x 355mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
GEORGE HAJIAN
Third Leg
2018
Rollage with found printed paper and galvanised wire
525mm H x 355mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Stretch Lines
2018
Rollage with found printed paper and galvanised wire
415mm H x 335mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
The New Alpha
2018
Rollage with found printed paper and galvanised wire
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Blue Mirrors
2018
Mixed rollage with found printed paper on book cover
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2018
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Blond Bender
2018
Collage with found printed paper on book cover
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Mates Only
2018
Mixed rollage with found printed paper on bookcover
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Twirling en Pointe
2018
Foil on collage with found printed paper
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
PRIVATE COLLECTION
GEORGE HAJIAN
Squeezed Tight
2018
Foil on collage with found printed paper
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Rolling Legs
2018
Double reverse rollage with found printed paper on bookcover
475mm H x 395mm H (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent Curls
2018
Double reverse rollage with found printed paper and galvanised wire
805mm H x 625mm W (frame)
WALLACE ARTS TRUST COLLECTION
GEORGE HAJIAN
Heroic Stances
2018
Reverse rollage with found printed paper and galvanised wire
325mm H x 265mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Pete
2018
Reverse rollage with found printed paper and galvanised wire
325mm H x 265mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2019
Installation View
GEORGE HAJIAN
Mile High
2018
Foil on collage with found printed paper
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Selfie with a Blond Wig
2018
Reverse rollage with found printed paper on book cover
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Selfie with a Green Cap
2018
Reverse rollage with found printed paper on book cover
475mm H x 395mm W (frame)
GEORGE HAJIAN
Bent & Blurred
February 2018
Installation View