Out of Order explores the relationship between text and image by conflating grid-based abstraction and technologically mediated language. In this body of work, the grid serves to control interactions between text and non-text.
Out of Order explores the relationship between text and image by conflating grid-based abstraction and technologically mediated language. In this body of work, the grid serves to control interactions between text and non-text. However, this does not result in a clean separation or an efficient delivery of language; absence of spacing between letters, restricted typography and optical colour relationships render the process of reading problematic. Through the codification of text into the painted grid, the transactional nature of language is tampered with to the point of becoming nearly indecipherable.
Words hidden within a series of brightly coloured paintings find their initial origin through the ‘keyboard mash’, or the act of aimlessly typing on a keyboard in a fit of excitement, boredom or catharsis. The incomprehensible strings of letters that come about from a keyboard mash are then processed using autocorrect, assigning the task of making linguistic decisions to a program designed to identify and fix errors. This process operates as a test of what words and phrases a corrective language system can come up with when its source material has no intended meaning. In most cases these attempts at imparting clarity upon nonsense are futile, resulting in the pairing of words that bear no contextual relationship to one another. By compacting these algorithmically resolved words and phrases within gridded paintings that deny their ease of reception, autocorrect’s primary function of streamlining interpersonal communication meets its final point of collapse.
ARTIST BIO
Terrence Combos is a Sydney-based emerging artist who has recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours 1) at UNSW Art & Design. In 2015 he held solo exhibitions at Rubicon ARI and SEVENTH, and was a part of group exhibitions at Penrith Regional Gallery and SNO Contemporary Art Projects. In 2014 he exhibited in group shows at Archive Space, Trocadero Art Space and Kudos Gallery, and was the winner of the drawing prize at the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award for the second consecutive year. 2016 sees Terrence commencing a Master of Fine Art at Sydney College of the Arts.
Out of Order explores the relationship between text and image by conflating grid-based abstraction and technologically mediated language. In this body of work, the grid serves to control interactions between text and non-text. However, this does not result in a clean separation or an efficient delivery of language; absence of spacing between letters, restricted typography and optical colour relationships render the process of reading problematic. Through the codification of text into the painted grid, the transactional nature of language is tampered with to the point of becoming nearly indecipherable.
Words hidden within a series of brightly coloured paintings find their initial origin through the ‘keyboard mash’, or the act of aimlessly typing on a keyboard in a fit of excitement, boredom or catharsis. The incomprehensible strings of letters that come about from a keyboard mash are then processed using autocorrect, assigning the task of making linguistic decisions to a program designed to identify and fix errors. This process operates as a test of what words and phrases a corrective language system can come up with when its source material has no intended meaning. In most cases these attempts at imparting clarity upon nonsense are futile, resulting in the pairing of words that bear no contextual relationship to one another. By compacting these algorithmically resolved words and phrases within gridded paintings that deny their ease of reception, autocorrect’s primary function of streamlining interpersonal communication meets its final point of collapse.
ARTIST BIO
Terrence Combos is a Sydney-based emerging artist who has recently completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours 1) at UNSW Art & Design. In 2015 he held solo exhibitions at Rubicon ARI and SEVENTH, and was a part of group exhibitions at Penrith Regional Gallery and SNO Contemporary Art Projects. In 2014 he exhibited in group shows at Archive Space, Trocadero Art Space and Kudos Gallery, and was the winner of the drawing prize at the Fisher’s Ghost Art Award for the second consecutive year. 2016 sees Terrence commencing a Master of Fine Art at Sydney College of the Arts.
