He built this city

Hansen yucken model 2015, steel, gal rust

Flynn Doran's solo exhibition refracted at Gallery 139 has been inspired by the city of Newcastle. Abstracted and bared down to lines and triangles that form the start of this young emerging  contemporary sculptor's art career.   

Opening night speech
For those of you who know Flynn well, you will know that Flynn is a thinker. He thinks a lot, about what his art is,and he thinks about what it will say to the viewers. His work may on first viewing seem minimal but in actual fact it is quite the exact opposite. Each angle, line, shape, rust section is there for a reason, which I found out during install. Whether we see it or not, I don't think it matters because it is imbedded in the sculpture and the making process.  It is this attention to detail and thoughtfulness on Flynn's behalf, that automatically exudes from the works and makes them so compelling. I congratulate Flynn on such a cohesive exhibition and I am excited to have it in the gallery for the next 3 weeks. I hope you all get the chance to pop back into the gallery to see the works again during the day when there are less bodies in the room. Please enjoy the rest of the night and thank you for coming. 
~ Ahn Wells

In Flynn's words "Each sculpture is a representation or impression of various locations around Newcastle. To develop these works, I spent a lot of time around the inner city watching the new buildings rise from their previous graves, covered in workers and scaffolding. Living in Newcastle over the last 10 years, I have witness these transforming skylines, as the old was replaced by the new, with very little trace of what was once there. But remnants still existed. I found that through my studies at tafe and uni, I had old photos and sketches of the spaces that were once inhabited by derelict buildings. Google Earth also played a large part to my research as often the street view photos were taken at different times, and because of this rapid gentrification, you could see an expired building or the empty space left by its demolition. 

Through these references I used the process of construction and deconstruction to exemplify what was gained or lost, with only trace elements of mark making and perspective to hint at these motifs. 

Overall they are abstract representations, metaphors within themselves that hold a skewed perspective as its key element. The extended strokes of lines thrown against the solid shapes obscure the notion of location but remain as an impression of the built landscape."

view from Beaumont Street looking into gallery taken on opening night