The limits of nothingness in the paintings of Dan Mafe
Daniel Mafe sets his own tempo. And that tempo is quiet and understated. His work shifts in small increments. You do not go to his opening to see the new season's colours. A viewing of Mate's recent exhibition at Redback Art Gallery, Brisbane, reveals dedication to process and surface. The paintings need time, both in their making and their viewing . Light becomes intrinsic to their appreciation, as does a changing scale of distance. His paintings are sincere, still, fru gal, monastic, spiritual even . There is no intemperance . Shades of grey pervade a restrained colour range that, underneath , began strong.
There is no romance with formalism and its critics. There are no tricks, no cunning reversals. lt is all straight dealing. You stay with the paintings and absorb their light, their surface, their texture. From speaking with Mate, I know him to be fascinated with opticality, with a phenomenology of viewing, with notions of optical interiority.1 I think about what I see and then about what I think he sees, what he holds in his mind. There are philosophical depths to these paintings for which a simple checklist of prior models will not suffice.
the memory of ...
"Apparent blanknesses shift to pale,
pearlescent memories of other paintings,
the silver screen of the cinema,
the white glare on roads or clouds and
then back again to the dense, translucent,
white veilings suggestive of
impasse or void."
Daniel Mafe 2
Certainly there is an artistic lineage for Mafe's work, but it is fascinatingly eclectic. While there are clear references to those American artists of the 'California sublime', James Turrell and Robert... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline