Ley Lines: Flin Sharp

Flin Sharp (b.1994) is a painter based in Sydney. His works are a lyrical study into the history of image making, oscillating between satire and sincerity. Through the process of erasing and layering many paintings over one another, Sharp's works develop a mesh of compositions which invite us to look for the images hidden underneath. In Ley Lines, Sharp brings together a series of new works made between 2021 and 2023. Ley lines are the alignments of natural or sacred sites believed to possess spiritual or energetic signicance, tethering together points on the Earth's surface with invisible pathways. Through the web of stratied marks, Sharp’s paintings reference the spatial and narrative connections drawn between images and ideas. They explore forgotten artists, imaginary ora, lost cats and the feelings of joy and loneliness.

 

 

Text by Gabrielle Chantiri

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Ley Lines is the title of Flin Sharp’s latest exhibition, referring to those invisible pathways believed to connect disparate points on the Earth’s surface, creating alignments of natural or sacred sites that possess spiritual or energetic significance. An amateur archaeologist may cite a holy well or standing stones as examples, while in Sharp’s picture-making this web of stratified marks reference the spatial and narrative connections between images and ideas. In dowsing rod (2023) and other works, we must look closely to see what pictures hide behind layers of paint, some of which date back to 2021. We can trace outlines until we’re satisfied with what we see. From there we can look further still, back into older layers of paint where it becomes harder to make things out, where cartoons become abstract gestural marks which become shapes which become patches of colour. In 1961 Ad Reinhardt claimed he was “merely making the last painting which anyone could make” 1 and thirty years before, the Russian Constructivist Aleksandr Rodchenko made his last paintings too; a red, a yellow and a blue monochrome, stating “I reduced painting to its logical conclusion...I affirmed: it’s all over!” 2. Sharp’s paintings look to the history of picture making, taking us to its end and back, across different lines of influence, like Durer and Klimt, Goya and Miro, American sculptors like Harriet Goodhue Hosmer and Hiram Powers. He’s also interested in the images created by unknown artists, as in Untitled (statue study, grey) (2022-23) we see a small figure looking into a mirror, while in easy listening (2023), a tooth and toothpaste hold one another. These are the little scenes from shop windows, a small business logo drawn by an artist unknown, whose end, unlike Reinhardt and Rodchenko (despite their declaration) isn’t cyclical, there is a real end for the little kneeling person and the happy hug of a tooth and paste who may well be forgotten. Ley Lines draws a sacred geometry of influences both anonymous and personal, as in looking for Pea (2023), where Sharp and his pet are larping as muscles. In paintings where the image takes up the entire canvas, the surface of the

painting comes into focus, its thick crust dressed in gestural marks. An outline, a cat, a swirl, a stain - the coalition of these things show the artist's hand, and contribute to a sense of paintings that are unfinished. Yet if these marks are indicative of change or will be subject to being painted over, then each scribble is one that’s made over and again, refined across every picture plane.

 

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1 AdReinhardt,Art-as-art:theselectedwritingsofAdReinhardt(UniversityofCaliforniaPress,1991)13

2 "TheDeathofPainting,"MoMa,1998,https://www.moma.org