Lamington Drive is pleased to present ‘Short Lived’ by Craig Redman. If you don't know, Craig is half of the duo, Craig & Karl, who we have featured in our Design department in our print edition, and is one of leading designers we have shown on our site. The show in Collingwood, Australia will run through June 27. 




‘Short Lived’ is a study of everyday gestures and expressions, an examination of ordinary moments distilled down to their simplest forms. Featuring recreations of Redman’s friends in the midst of unassuming acts — eating, contemplating, smoking, waving hello — the work is carefully cropped to pinpoint the most essential components, at times isolating all bodily context until only a limb remains.

The characters in the paintings confront the viewer head on and yet, despite this apparent candour, the subjects maintain a sense of disconnection, a sense that something is hiding behind the veil of their body language. Detached limbs take on sculptural forms, upended to create fresh interpretations of once-familiar gestures.

Simplicity is king — modest materials are given space to breathe, championed through the exposure of bare wood panelling, and compositions are stripped back to binary colour combinations, forcing uncomplimentary colours to work together in harmony. Monochromatic pieces in the series create an unconventional textural landscape through the building of multiple layers of paint, allowing one layer to stand out from another and enabling one colour to substitute many.