Tempting God
Sept-Oct, 2009
Depot Gallery
danks street - sydney

Artists
Wayne Warren (UK); Tony Scott (Australia); Jayne Dyer (Australia); Gonkar Gyatso (UK); Lindy Lee (Australia); Liu Gang (China)

Tempting God

Teasing, alluring, inviting, enticing, provoking, tantalizing are synonyms of ‘tempting’. The exhibition Tempting God references a range of icons such as trademarks and branding taken by artists as visual codes for communication and re-contextualised to engage the observer in a dialogue on contemporary values, attitudes and beliefs.
The diverse meanings reflect personal and social values addressing notions of the spiritual, materialist consumerism, health, knowledge and power. The exhibition draws connections between traditional and contemporary language, referencing the codes and practices of different industries. Wit and humour subvert the content of language, making us re-think intention, meaning and value across cultural and national boundaries.
Reg Newitt
Exhibition curator
September 2009

Lindy Lee
Almost all of my life I’ve been preoccupied with the nature of self in the world. My Zen Buddhist practice provides a frame of reference and spiritual discipline for this exploration.
Lately I’ve become interested in images of the Chinese dragon and of fire, which is the embodiment of cosmic and elemental forces at play – forces beyond the realm of human intervention and yet completely material to human existence.

Liu Gang
I think the advertisement is the mirror of our daily life. I take pictures of advertisements to keep evidence of what is happening in this specific historical moment.
One day historians and archaeologists will discover that the advertisements of our era are the richest and most truthful representations of everyday life.

Wayne Warren
I play with words and phrases - using them as points of departure. I enjoy experimenting with different materials and am driven by the desire to look for things inside other things. The work oscillates between figuration and abstraction effortlessly, whilst continuing to maintain a fresh quality and sense of humour.
My art is about questioning values and individual expression.

Jayne Dyer
What happens when the visual arts and language conflate?
In an age of the sound-bite and increasingly paperless information exchange, Australian artist Jayne Dyer uses language, books and the loose proposition of the library to discuss the relationship of visual arts with linguistics. Her work raises questions about our relationship with books and addresses issues of translation and knowledge transference that reflect local to global communication and access.

Guan Wei
The capsules, the mythical modern-day ‘treasures’. As though in a game of hide and seek, the animals at times remove the treasures from the reach of human beings. Along with the evident humour in the series there is also a serious side to these works relating to the artist’s concerns about drugs and medicine such as Prozac, ‘that maybe give you good feelings like you’re going to paradise but after a while shoot you back to earth’.

Tony Scott
I want the presentation of seemingly benign objects to be discomfiting. I am required, as are most of us, to place blind faith in medicine when I must consult physicians. My stoic model stands proxy for us in this portentous composition and expresses the vulnerability, frustration and humiliation we can feel in the hands of the medical profession. Nevertheless, we courageously endure the procedure with as much human dignity as we can muster. I refuse to give up control.

Gonkar Gyatso
The idea of globalisation and going beyond that concept is very much about my works - the fact that we are not settled yet constantly moving and changing...the idea of having no beginning nor end, which are very much influenced by my own inherited culture - Buddhism. Here, the globalized culture, economy, and politics constantly negotiate and conflict the philosophy.