Gallery 9 is proud to present COBALT FLOAT, Woodruffe's first show with Gallery 9. Woodruffe's paintings, described by Lucinda Bennett as "Wet Maps" cumulate a fluid way of encountering the world when the world itself is fluid and porous, "living, breathing ecosystems, and visualisations of a new kind of urbanism".

Less speaking about the anthropocene as he does plunge directly into its mercurial depths, Woodruffes paintings extend the non-linear and non-specific viewpoints of the baroque in what writer Mary-Anne Caws describes as a spatial order of shifting boundaries that "teaches us to think about reversals, upside-downness, and in-outness [...] fascination with what is complex, multiple, clouded, and changeable" (Caws, M.A. 1997).

“I create abstract painted images using a process of coloured filters, trails and stops. These elements construct multipleperspectives and entry points to produce an aquatic sense of depth, a spatial sensibility that rejects a central focus orprescribed vision. Rather, it lets the vision (and mind) wander. By entering into and moving through such a permeable environment, the viewer is encouraged into various viewpoints and locations so to exercise a dynamic contemplation, to come across spaces where they can think at different speeds. These spaces relate directly, through the abstract tonality of the composition, to the profusion of life, to the unseen world of connections and negotiation, of our invisible universe of thought and emotions”.

Evan Woodruffe was born in 1965 in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, where he currently lives and works. He is a Master of Fine Arts (1st Class Honours), University of Auckland, and the recipient of the 2011 Molly Morpeth Canaday Award and 2003 Becroft Premier Award. Wood-ruffe exhibits throughout the Asia-Pacific region, and has work in significant collections in Singapore, Beijing, Sydney, Melbourne, and New Zealand, including the prestigious Wallace Arts Trust in Auckland. His recent exhibitions include Tauranga Art Gallery, Sydney Contemporary at Carriageworks, Spring 1883 in Melbourne, and Dunedin Public Art Gallery. He has collaborated with Jaguar Singapore, BMW Australia, performers, musicians and fashion designers to extend his painting practice beyond the wall.

Press release courtesy Gallery 9.