Richard Blackwell, a young, emerging talent from Canberra, continues his fascination with real and virtual boundaries. His recent solo exhibition, Grotto Volume 3, followed on from his solo shows in Canberra (Grotto 1) and Chicago (Grotto 2), employing veneers, digital projections and aluminium printing techniques to play with ideas of spatial distortion, inspired by architectural forms and landscapes. Illusionary tropes transform accepted constraints between interior and exterior to create new readings of accessible and impenetrable space.

‘The point of assemblage has been the staple foundation in Blackwell’s previous rchitectural ciphers. Here the spectator is held externally by the image. Blackwell continually criss-crosses the codes of habitation, tempting the reward of a physical outcome. Critically Blackwell’s objects share an affinity with the Surrogates of Allan McCollum and the ‘model’ buildings of Julian Opie.'
- Roy Merchant, ANU Arts Lecturer

Blackwell states of his practice, ‘My intention is to create work which intersects divergent contemporary realities. These include the finite spaces we physically inhabit, the built environment we place in those spaces and the architecture of virtual reality that we produce and is infinite.’

Trent Walter explores the practice of FLG artist Richard Blackwell in the latest Sept/Oct issue of Australian Art Review.
Click here to read the full article.

For more information and essays on the Grotto series, please visit www.richardblackwell.net