The Thousands

Li Gang does all sorts of stuff – sculpture, painting, drawing, photography. His upcoming show at the aEaf, in the grey scale, is a touring photography show, travelling through both regional and metropolitan Australia. Like many, he is drawn to the analogue camera and the blurs, smears, scratches and splashes that happen in the processing of film.

Some like to dismiss the in vogue fascination with analogue photography, but as soon as you encounter the mysterious chemistry that quietly splashes in the darkroom you’ll forget your judgements.

Li Gang is more selective than most darkroom wizards – he has an eye for the unusual image that is both a little too familiar and slightly jarring. Recalling oscillating traditional Chinese painted landscapes, Li Gang’s images warp in out of stability, capturing satisfyingly sharp clarity only to grotesquely inflate and contort it.

Opening on the same night is the latest instalment in the odradek series – the aEaf’s ongoing window project. First up in 2012 is Timothy Hodge – one of Adelaide’s spiritual-psych-mess-set – whose dirty, colourful, sensory paintings and sculptures have been quietly bobbing adrift ‘the scene’ for the last two or three years.