We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art stands and recognise the creative contribution First Australians make to the art and culture of this country.
Eugene Carchesio / Australia b.1960 / Test pattern for hope 2001 / Paper cones on paper / Purchased 2005 Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © The artist
Eugene CarchesioTest Pattern for Hope 2001
Not Currently on Display
Test pattern for hope was executed on 1 January 2001, the first day of the new millennium; it is inscribed 01-01-01 in the lower right-hand corner. For Carchesio it was important to commemorate this date with a positive artistic act, a gesture of goodwill for the millennium ahead.
The choice of the colour yellow for the work was particularly significant for the artist as for him it symbolises warmth, illumination and hope. Geometric shapes like the cone appear regularly in his work reflecting his interest in the boundaries and mergings between art and science and as symbols of energy and infinity. They also relate to the iconography of Utopian Modernism, and to sound and music, all of which are recurring tropes in his oeuvre.
The very nature of Eugene Carchesio’s work makes it very difficult to describe it in words. His art is about the enigmatic, the mysterious, the spiritual. While he creates objects which are pleasurable simply in their visual effects, they are also very complex intellectually and conceptually.
Carchesio always works on a minimal and miniature scale, in direct opposition to the monumental oil on canvas productions of many contemporary artists. His choice of materials is very important and he often works on scraps of paper or card as a deliberate move away from so-called ‘artist’s materials’. He opposes any notion of current movements and styles and, rather, works from within his own experiences and thoughts. Carchesio is a musician and a wide reader, his artworks reflecting these interests. However, Carchesio’s work has many sources including science, geometry, Oriental mysticism and art history (particularly Russian Constructivism and the work of Joseph Beuys).
Eugene Carchesio has said of his art:
‘I deal in trying to move people’s insides. I guess the greatest thing a work of art can do is to inspire. A life process . . . always moving . . . creating . . . breathing with your head. Indicating what is perhaps beyond things . . . Everything is spiritual. But also when I make a work I develop a strong sensual bond to it. I won’t be able to take my eyes off it . . . I just keep looking and looking into it, going deeper into the colours, texture or whatever medium it is . . . sink into this created world.’