GRANT TAKLE – Sound Proof – 7-31 May 2024

Grant Takle has cut a couple of hundred records into neat sections to make Sound Proof. The discs ­­– now in halves, quarters and thirds – are silenced, yet the suggestion of music is not. What comes across is the visual resonance of a grooved rhythm in reflective black, rippling across the wall. The colour of the printed labels pings, providing high notes, or recedes, offering deeper harmonies. White space actively partners dark looping lines in the same way that silence partners sound. Odd geometries occur as one’s eye jumps from join to join. Sound Proof is a strangely organic invention, custom-made to fit the size, shape and character of this particular wall. Takle makes it impossible to fix one’s vision in any one place, the work demands a moving engagement. It is as if the disc still have the potential to spin.

It would be impossible to lock down, and therefore limit, the meaning of Sound Proof.  Music is as personal as any one’s experience of it. It brings back memories, some of which are shared. Takle says this mode of work comes from his penchant for cutting and piecing together disparate parts to make a new whole. He mentioned Frankenstein’s monster, Mary Shelley’s invention, a figure that has recurred in his painting through the years. He also talked about epigenetics, how environment effects and habitual behaviours can be inherited from generation to generation and that music contributes to that inheritance. Takle went on to say that this work is ‘emotional extraction rather than abstract expressionism’ which perhaps means that music runs parallel to life, is embedded into it, and he has delved into that parallel life to create this work.

. Grant Takle can install custom iterations in your home or space, price dependent on size and space.

   

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A related installation made in collaboration with Richard Reddaway and Terry Urbhan, ‘New Cuts Old Music’, is on at Te Uru, Titirangi until 26 May, 2024.
Review by John Hurrell, Eye Contact.