exhibition review: magda cebokli’s ‘drawn out’

Nodding towards minimalism, conceptual and process art, the ideas behind Magda Cebokli’s Drawn Out, currently showing at the Counihan Gallery, Brunswick are difficult to reconcile. For one, each is too complex an idea to explore properly through just a nod. For another, trying to survey them all at once makes things far too convoluted to draw any trustworthy conclusions.

In the crudest of Layman’s terms, conceptual art refers to art in which the idea or concept takes precedent over other elements like aesthetic or material properties. Process art seeks to underscore methods of production and minimalism is primarily concerned with how works appear in relation to a specific time and space.

If we cast aside the dense academic residue attached to each of these terms, Cebokli’s vision makes perfect sense: squares really aren’t all that square. Taking the square as a constant, Cebokli shows us that it needn’t be restrictive or drab. In fact, the square is inspiring, bursting with potentiality, and harbours infinite creative possibilities.

 

To prove it, we are presented with an assortment of squares across a spectrum of aesthetic contexts. We see squares made from acrylic on linen appear next to squares painted on protruding canvasses. There are squares that vary in scale, compositional arrangement and form. Whilst we are made well aware of the square’s latent, expressive capacity, we are given far too many variables for us to properly isolate or focus on any of them.

Echoing a minimalist aesthetic, works in Drawn Out are almost entirely in black and white. Presumably, this intends to create a dichotomy of absolute values, removing impact of colour as a variant so that we can scrutinize other ways in which the square affects our senses of space, time and perception. This theory bodes well until you reach one of the pieces that involve colour, at which point you become thoroughly confused. As you retrace your conceptual steps, you search for some other consistency between pieces that will enable you to consider them on the same keel.  A similar effect occurs when you reach a Corner Suite: Variation piece that contains a circle, and again when confronted by Neon, a 3-Dimensional canvas divided into four parts.

Conceptually speaking, the exhibition appears as a kind of investigation of the square and how it may challenge our sense of perception. But amidst all the variation it’s impossible to compare the square’s respective contexts and figure out exactly which elements of our perception are being negotiated. And without a solid position from which to look, we are unable to scratch the surface of any of the huge ideas being referenced. All we can really deduce is that squares are expressively dexterous.

 

Whilst the meaning we extract from art is a virtually boundless phenomenon, we still need a tangible nudge in a given direction. Drawn Out provides us with too many different visual components across a small space for us to sufficiently isolate an impression and marvel at how it’s being interrogated. Art is meant to pose questions, but before we can ask them we need some thread of understanding to cling to.

Whilst Cebokli does succeed in stressing her conception of the square creatively versatile, simply repeating imagery of the square in different visual contexts paraphrases too many larger ideas without allowing us a concerned look at any in particular. Her expression succeeds in referencing ideas set out by existing artistic juggernauts, but fails to pause for breath and consider any in the depth they require. Whether you choose to tangle yourself with semantic discrepancies behind the work, Drawn Out is sharp, visually engaging and above all showcases the supreme expressive power of the square. Whatever the verdict, we will never again think squares boring.

Magda Cebokli’s ‘Drawn Out’ is showing at the Counihan Gallery, Brunswick, until February 17 2013

By Monica Karpinski