According to one abstractionist, art galleries are under threat from the online click culture of shopping carts and instant deals.
PJ Hickman is a painter of works that reference key texts such as the De Stilj manifesto and the Qwerty keyboard. His installation Click takes gallery sites on the internet as his source of information.
The result is a depressing reduction of the gallery scene to 24 clicks, including old-time favourites Subscribe, Cookies and Buy Now.
“Four galleries have recently closed in Sydney,” Hickman told AAR, providing evidence for the thesis of Add to Cart.
Hickman’s bold black and white indictment of the normalisation of the art world is one of four shows on at the Five Walls Gallery in May that scrutinise the industry.
AAR has previously reported on the growth of this Footscray gallery and this latest group of exhibitions flexes quite a lot of Minimalist muscle.
The current fad for stripey geometric abstraction is taken a step further in Franky Howell’s 3D constructions that stay within the bounds of modesty.
Yet there is nothing trite about their impact, designed to challenge the viewer’s expectations of colour harmony.
The exquisite poses of Anna Finlayson’s pink stripes on board show restraint at its most moving. In Multi-colour Bent Stripe lines are flexed in a show of 3D charisma that could be called outrageous or illusionistic space.
Why do small, carefully constructed pieces work so well? Viewers may lose some of their cherished ideas while considering this question.
Post-minimalist work includes process and concept. Finlayson’s pieces unpack the process of colour-mixing and graphing, revealing clever combinations of line and colour that seem to say so much.
The De Stilj movement referenced by Hickman in this exhibition restricted their paintings to straight lines and primary colours. You could call May at Five Walls a major development of this thinking.
Across town another abstract show opened at One Star, a gallery just beginning to appreciate the fervour of abstractionists.
Arbitrary Paintings is the fourth show at the gallery by Matthew Simpson who is getting quite a following if the turn-out at his opening was anything to go by.
Simpson purports to build his work like Cy Twombly out of networks of lines that aim to keep everyone guessing.
One fan referred to his “swimming pool” patterns, a jibe in the game abstractionists play with each other that might be called “spot the reference”.
Two paintings stand out for their obtuseness Dord and Inselberg, both named after geological features.
“His persistence is edgy,” one commentator claimed. Most of the artists have been at work on these problems for decades.
PJ Hickman (Add to Cart), Franky Howell (Formline), Anna Finlayson (Untitled) and others is on display at Five Walls Gallery, Footscray, until 24 May 2025.
Arbitrary Paintings (Matthew Simpson) is on display at One Star Gallery, West Melbourne, until 18 May 2025.
Images: PJ Hickman at the opening of Add to Cart at Five Walls Gallery – photo by Rhonda Dredge | Anna Finlayson, Bent Pink Stripe, 2025, acrylic and pencil on board – photo by Rhonda Dredge | Matthew Simpson, Dord, 2025, acrylic on canvas – photo by Rhonda Dredge
Words: Rhonda Dredge