MCR
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Marley Dawson (B. 1982, Sydney, Australia ), Christopher Hanrahan (B. 1978, Mudgee, Australia ). Both artists live and work in Sydney, Australia.
Dawson and Hanrahan’s collaborations focus on cultural displacement and community participation. Notable projects include Power Tool Racing at Chalkhorse 2006 and more recently ECR at the Performance Space 2008. ECR saw Dawson and Hanrahan transpose an operable dirt-bike track into a gallery environment – mixing situational estrangement with machanical poetics.
Marley Dawson works in sculpture, installation and performance. He is as much interested in the aesthetic concerns of late-modernist sculpture and the experimentation implicit in the kinetic art movement as the heroic antics of pop-culture icons such as Indiana Jones, Buster Keaton and MacGuyver. Dawson’s work often sees him constructing complex aesthetic machines. For a recent solo exhibition - Heavy Industry / light Commercial (2011) at Roslyn Oxley9 gallery, Dawson built kinetic sculptures where rotating tires turned into endless loops, bearing testament to passed activity and holding residual traces of intervention. Through his research, Dawson investigates the activity of making art while at the same time reinforcing its aesthetic purpose.
Holes, light, empty vessels, transparent containers; seeming nothing is what characterises Christopher Hanrahan’s sculptural practice – crudely built structures that parade their rudimentary construction, while holding onto an air of stillness and quietude. Correction #1 (2011) (2010) is a recent example of how Hanrahan’s work; while appearing menial in its construction, alludes to such meta-narratives as the impossible pursuit of perfection.
Dawson received a Bachelor of Visual Arts (Hons) and a Masters of Visual Arts from Sydney College of the Arts in 2003 and 2007 respectively. He has exhibited widely in artist-run-spaces, since 2001. Solo exhibitions include Trick Shop at Locksmith Project Space, Sydney (2009) and Marley Dawson (shed) at Chalkhorse, Sydney (2008).
Hanrahan was awarded the University Medal from Sydney College of the Art Graduating with first class honors 2003. Since this time, Hanrahan has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas, notably at PICA, Perth (2004/ 07), Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne (2007/10) and Art Futures – Art HK, Hong Kong Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2009). He is also the founder and director of db Project, Sydney.
Marley Dawson is represented by Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Sydney.
Christopher Hanrahan is represented by Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney; and Tristian Koenig, Melbourne.
