Daydream Believers

Overview

The abject, the dark, the forgotten and the strange are the characters in Daydream Believers. Abstract figures and landscapes inhabit the sculptures, photographs, prints and figurines in the latest exhibition at IMA.

The exhibition responds to the essay  ‘Figures of Authority, Ciphers of Regression’ written by Benjamin Buchloch in 1981. In this essay Buchloch explores the early-twentieth-century avant-gardists and their movement away from abstraction to return to more traditional figurative themes and styles.

Daydream Believers is an exhibition of works by people who share Buchloch’s sensibilities. These artists explore history in all its horror, detailing abstract mythical beasts, dark landscapes and strange behaviours of earlier times.

The exhibition includes glass paintings, monoprints, tapestries, furniture and figurines created by some of Australia and New Zealand’s most interesting modern artists.

Featured in the exhibition are gothic prints by Jason Greig alongside decaying black and white photographs and layered images by David Noonan. John Spiteri creates eclectic glass paintings, sculptures and figurines and Francis Upritchard has produced mythical sculptural installations for this exhibition.

This is a journey into the fantastical and the avant-garde, all with a historical bent.