Eugene Carchesio's exhibitions at That gallery, at John Mills National and, most recently, at the Bellas gallery have roused increasingly enthusiastic comments in the press. Reviews have rightly pointed to the easeful charm of the works and their fresh and original re-playing of those symbols and myths which have served as fundamental pointers to inner human processes, as well as to the outward changes of matter. The artist uses such symbols freely and spontaneously in order to build up cosmoses within cosmoses in such a way that no one systematic interpretation can fully accommodate their meaning. He avoids stereotype through his committment to a rigorous honesty and ethical action, a determined simplicity of approach. Memories, signs, suggested notions are seemingly thrown playfully onto the paper, constructed loosely, or extremely densely, according to the generative feeling of the work: finally, "christened" with a title which is a fundamental part of the work, poetically, but forcefully, nailing-down the final intention without breaking through its enigma.

The works do remain enigmatic. Most "art" does not not “say it all" all at once, but the elusiveness of Eugene Carchesio's work is constructed carefully into its purpose. Nonetheless the work is accessible, especially at the purely visual level since his new experimentation with colour - a pleasure in the sensual quality of the surfaces which his philosophical approach has not erased or tried to deny. (Interviews with Nine Queensland Artists IMA Brisbane, 1986).

Although he is at the beginning of "establishing" himself in the mainstream gallery exhibition circuit (through Peter Bellas' sensitive and thoughtful promotion), he seems to be at the end of a long period in which he has been reflecting on symbology. Whatever comes next may continue the basic ideas, but some re-assessment is also clearly taking place. That is why it is interesting to contemplate the general course of Eugene's work over the past four years. Within such an analysis, it is worth thinking beyond the surface appearance of the symbols (and the references mentioned earlier) to concepts, which the artist has also mentioned, but which have not always been taken up by his critics. In these he, paradoxically, questions his own use of such symbology, which is perhaps the reason for a certain ambivalence of reading which works against their surface openness. (Although all symbols by tradition are polarized into negative and positive meanings.)

In his artist's statement to the Bellas exhibition, Eugene took some powerful quotes from writers significant to this thinking. These refer to the •mystery". Many titles of his works point beyond the systematized, beyond the duality of rational and irrational, a duality which is merely reason's own way of grapsing the paradoxes of human-life and its snake-like changes. In his music there is a similar tendency which initially seems to be an increasingly controlled ability to forcefully and confidently merge various streams of musical tradition and anti-musical experimentation into a strong, polished, single thread. But, within both the music and the visuals, there is a melancholia and an energized questioning which subverts the surface competence of the art (which is why some critics would refer to a conceptualist presence in Eugene's work). He does not surrender to the surface. The work remains strong and original for that reason and unusual in an age of cool rationality and "toeing-the-line" (though most artists would swear through their teeth about their total independence from restraints of current "style").

Works in the Bellas show which tended to operate against their own symbology were those such as Dream of a Factory and a Rose, or Animals Glowing at the Thought of Death, whose meanings are absent, in some aspiration towards the Sublime (in Lyotard's definition), without being surrealistic, or metaphysical. Some of this is due to the personal references which are not revealed. He is not afraid to subjectivize his work through integrating experiences which have formed the grain of his life. But, Eugene manages to do this without overwhelming his viewers and listeners with an enormous, expressionistic ego, as his modest stage presence verifies (viz. at performances at IMA, Brisbane, and John Mills, as well as the Clout works).

The enigma developed over the course of time, manifesting delightfully in missives through the post to some privileged few, who would receive unexpected, minute drawings in pencil, barely visible, but always determinedly titled. In that phase, around 1983-1984, influenced by Beuys, the repertoire of symbols centred on spirals, swords, crosses and primitive marks, placed carefully in isolation from each other on the roughest of scraps from his work-place. At That (Aug. 1986), these tentative markings solidified into denser surfaces exploding into a confident attack on colour, impacting in a kinesis which reflected the aggressive musical work he was producing with the Closesthing. The symbology became more definite and  anthropormorphic and certain new elements came in, such as the horse, winged or otherwise, linked with fire and fire meanings. The horse, linked to birth-death-transcendence, continues to be extremely important (viz. Two People Dreaming About Themselves and Two Horses Dreaming ate).

The works at Bellas are the most open confrontations with the inevitability and the transcience of the cycle of nature and human interactions. The passive fayness and tolerance of such restless mutation in the poetic dreams of Eugene's earlier, shyer works has gone, to be replaced by both a questioning demand of life, as well as a very detached analysis of the structures of intiation, change and ending (Blood Lines and the Alchemy of Doubt, Conversations with the Dead just before the Beginning, Here). The about-turn to face the processes head-on was signalled in his guitar work by more committed phrasing, a firmer attack on syncopation and richer melodic structures. A performance work at John Mills in March 1987 with Jane Richens was stunning in the unexpected way that two normally mild people could transmit the purity of anger by music and spoken voice.

Other reviews have listed the sources of Eugene's imagery: science (infinity equations), geometry, Oriental mysticism, art-history (Funnel Time Tunnel ) Russian Constructivism via John Nixon via ... etc. The juxtaposing of the scientific and the aesthetic must surely have been inspired by Joseph Beuys who had denied that these were an opposition, but rather maimed aspects of each other. Eugene's art tries to cancel opposition. This search for the constant term between them relates to the development towards sculptural works and also to the importance of two-dimensional/ three-dimensional correlates in the paintings. Many of the paintings are trying to walk off the walls, as are the tiny relief works, (some are monochrome •matchbox" installations, but there are others which, posing as "painting", are actually objects in the third dimension). This impulse has been somewhat held back but, promoted by his recent performance work (chiefly in the Clout enterprise), it should become increasingly significant. Inspired by the expansiveness of the Bellas gallery and its general receptive workability as a space, Eugene set up an installation between the electric meters at the door and Answer Relay Cross opposite, which polarized the walls into negative and positive and, at the same time, drew the length of the room together, with a space for "occurrences" in the centre.

In the IMA interviews with artists (op.cit.), he refers to the energies which flow through the changes, constant in the very certainty of transformation. It is a stepping-out of the earth spirit duality.

“ ... we build our emotions into blank invisible structures which never exist and are not there and are an illuison and pain and sadness .. ." (Leroy Jones from Artist's Statement, Bellas)

What is the other side of yes-no, the resolution to what is otherwise a passive acceptance of the dynamic of process, for that is still within the folding and turning of nature?" ... As a child I was graced with the gift of dematerialization. I was also able to construct the scenes of great mysteries ... " (Patti Smith/bid)

Infinity for Eugene Carchesio could never be something expressable by "just wav(ing) my hands about or point(ing) to something and hop(ing) it will suffice" ( IMA). Negation is not an answer for him. The definite colour presence of his work and the harmonic strength of his music prevents such a resolution. Dualities would have to be outwitted within a personal imminence, as well as in terms of a detached transcendence - ultimately in some reconciliation with the dynamics of power. His audience senses the reaching out past the surfaces, their fascinated magic stories and universes which at times threaten claustrophobia. For all its undirected self-evolution, Eugene's painting and music has a logic which indicates a break. Symbols are mirrors and they mirror an enigma. The surface of a pearl reflects all colours and lights, but always its own translucence shines through.

Symbols should point beyond themselves. Hence the enigma of this artist's work. His symbols are mirrors on both sides. They also reflect that other side. At its worst, symbology in most cultures (chiefly Surrealism in ours) has been less a way to free the psyche, than to trap it, mesmerizing the indulgent reason in the play of form and structure. Eugene's work maintains the openess and randomness of his earlier phases (although Petelin rightly comments on his move from Dada in his review in The Australian). Eugene's work breaks free from its own enchantment.

“ ... the sun with a face of fire came face to face with an atom. This ocean of beautiful pearls went to seek a drop of water .. ." (Faridud-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds)