ReDot Fine Art Gallery is honoured to present, Two Stories, a major exhibition of 6 recent steel sculptures and one installation comprising 13 individual Australian Jarrah hardwood poles by renowned Australian artist, Greg Johns. Ever since he started making sculptures in 1976 Greg says he has ‘felt largely alienated from the art world.’ He says that much of what has been produced from Pop art onwards frankly bores him! Despite being viewed as an outsider, a slightly eccentric maverick of his chosen profession, this hasn’t stopped him becoming one of the most celebrated and collectable sculptural artists Australia has ever produced.

His achievements read almost like a novella with pages and pages of accolades. Over 50 invitations and awards can be attributed to him since his first solo show in 1977 and the list of collections and commissions he is held within or undertaken run into the hundreds, such has been his appeal and connection with the Australian and global public. This is all the more impressive given the often super-sized mediums of his oeuvres in both steel and wood, which are not always manageable in normal spaces.

His astonishing work has indeed not gone unnoticed even in the Lion city, with significant works in the Wing Tai Collection, Singapore and a major sculpture commission for REDAS, Singapore between 1993–95. Greg has refused to allow the comparative isolation of Adelaide to limit his career!

According to Robert Lindsay, the former Director of McClelland Sculpture Park, much of Greg’s early work revolved around the use of simple interlocking, reciprocal geometric patterns where an apparently continuously interwoven pattern appears to form visual conundrums. However, within his early use of repeating triangular and later semi-circular shapes, which he refers to as ’waveforms’, there is a consistent overarching interest in the interconnectedness, as he says, of ’patterning, of symbolism and timelessness, and the unfolding of subtler and more complex systems; as well as questions of spirit, physical systems and randomness, that all exist in an integrated manner’.

His interconnection extends to Indigenous culture and the Australian outback too, referenced repeatedly in his work, giving a soothing juxtaposition to his sometimes confronting works. This latest collection, which will be shown within the context of a backdrop of Indigenous hardship and conflict via David Kelly’s ‘An Unconfirmed Number’ will open challenging but hopefully rewarding dialogues for the viewer, bringing this enormous talent to the forefront of the Asian art scene exactly four decades after commencing his career.

The exhibition begins on Wednesday 3rd August and runs until Sunday 28th August 2016. It will be attended in person by Greg Johns for the official opening on Wednesday 17th August 2016 at 6:30pm.