Ahn Wells’ recently exhibited work in the group exhibition POINT OF ENTRY at the Front Room Gallery,Newcastle is titled 3 Dusty Purple Woolie Squares (2011). It is a frameless rectangle of 60cm x 80cm, comprised of regularly spaced vertical strands of black, crocheted woollen yarn into which have been knotted three fifteen centimetre, dusty purple squares, rising diagonally from the lower left.

Despite its simplicity of design and construction this work is far more evocative and engaging than its sparse title may suggest. Each strand is nailed one centimetre from the wall and a similar distance from its neighbour. This spacing produces the physical depth which allows the uniform grey shadows cast by the crocheted strands to become an integral part of the piece, in a relationship that constantly shifts as one moves in front of it.

The interplay between the strands and with these shadows creates the dynamism generated from within this deceptively simple work. Open, seemingly vibrating strands transform into solid corrugated surfaces, only to be released back to their former state in the next glance, seducing the viewer in an engaging, hypnotic dance.

John Barnes
Doctor of Philosophy (Fine Art)
University of Newcastle

1 July 2011


3 Dusty Purple Woolie Squares (2011) was exhibited in the group exhibition POINT OF ENTRY at Front Room Gallery, Newcastle Art School, Hunter Street, TAFE (4 - 20 May 2011).


POINT OF ENTRY - Catalogue Essay by John Barnes

For over a century the Newcastle Art School has been the educational hub from which innumerable spokes of artistic life have radiated across Newcastle and the broad Australian artscape. POINT OF ENTRY encompasses graduates' work from the past two decades, unified by the deep practical understanding and appreciation of art making that has underpinned the School since its inception.

But in addition to developing artists that have driven all areas of arts practice this is a place of ideas from which graduates are increasingly successful in their pursuit of higher academic degrees and careers within the public museum and private gallery sectors.

Attending two classes a day on a small campas, crossing from one discipline to another, constantly in contact with a relatively small cohort of fellow students and teachers one's life becomes concentrated into the world of art. It is the demands of this intensely focussed environment that soon removes those under any delusion that art should, for some reason, be easy but it (is) this same intensity that energises those who accept the chance of it becoming the dominant force in their lives.

This art school has always been a place where mediocrity has had no part, a part, a place where risk is valued and work is pushed to the point of failure. It is a place of endless possibilities, unrestricted by prescriptive formulae.

The unceasing exploration and questioning of materials, methods and means of expression through constant physical and mental exertion has been central to the School's ethos. This, of course is accompanied by the development of a strong conceptual base for all work which is attained through the totally interconnected processes of studio-based practice.

It is in the studio that skills are developed and it is in the studio that an understanding and respect for practice as the means of attaining clarity of thought, as well as action is pursued. It is here that the conceptual becomes contrete within the context of historic and contemporary frameworks, the place where ideas and emtions are exchanged through the sensual encounter with the materiality of art.

For those who have willingly engaged with the demands and challenges presented by the Art School there has been a unifying growth in understanding the art world we have chosen to inhabit, supported by a strong skills base and a confidence in the communicative possibilities of art.

It is hoped that the values of enquiry, investigation, experimentation, risk, skill and practice that graduates have taken from this school will continue to drive its cirriculum in the face of the relentlessly destructive forces that assail it.

14 April 2011