Anita Traverso Gallery exhibits Chris Rak Kivos

DATES March 4 - 28
GALLERY HOURS Wed-Sat 11am – 5pm or by appointment
VENUE ANITA TRAVERSO GALLERY, 7 Albert Street Richmond Victoria.
CONTACT 03 9428 7557, art@anitatraversogallery.com.au, www.anitatraversogallery.com.au

Whilst Chris Rak is known for his fluid and largescale commissioned public sculptures in and around Melbourne and Sydney CBDs, Rak’s new body of work shifts direction with small-scale works and a focus on basic principles of form. As Rak’s exhibition title suggests, Kivos [Greek for cube] documents the evolution of a 15cm cube.

Kivos explores various states of the cube morphing from hard-edged and manufactured shapes into innovative and handcrafted form. ‘I set about exploring the architectonic object and its morphology through time and space… Forms appear to be in the process of turning themselves inside out; drifting and bouncing back and forth.’ - CHRIS RAK

Rak’s zealous process involves 3 steps of creation. The cube is distorted and manipulated through incision, extension and extrusion in a digital medium. Rak describes the final steps as ‘a birth into the physical world’ it ‘begins as a cardboard maquette where it continues its morphology leading to its final expression as a steel object’. The use of hand etching adds a tactile and individual quality to each work, whilst incisions reveal interior spaces that disclose the recurrent presence of the grid within.

The ‘Rak cube’, whilst it aspires for unsettled perspectives and defying balancing acts, does not bring with it the degree of frustration of the ‘Rubik’s’!! In a world fraught with crises, natural disaster and a growing desire to express strong personal opinions, Kivos is refreshingly straightforward in its aim: the exploration of form.

Exhibition directed by Anita Traverso