JASON HAUFE
A road or path followed, regardless of its dips or climbs up steep hills, followed around winding corners without knowing what surprises awaits, is a fitting metaphor for the work of Melbourne artist Jason Haufe. For although Haufe employs the same process with the same medium, if you follow the path longer enough, whether walking or by means of transportation, always in a forward direction, you will pass through different terrain and arrive at different places.
An example of this can be seen in Haufe’s first show of collages at Factory 49 in 2015. The works displayed a biomorphic linear quality, the density of the lines being open here or closed there, but always spreading across the picture plane in an all over formation. In this latest exhibition, Haufe without veering off his chosen course, has produced collages which see the lines having been shrunk to form iconic structures on a white ground in ever more eccentric and daring combinations.
The evolution from one point to the next is arrived at by continuing Haufe’s method of copying and scanning old work and using that information to feed into future work. By this very process, unforeseen possibilities emerge, that the artist simply chooses from.
Automatism as a source for abstract art is enriched through the use of post-digital techniques. The process is followed not because of blind faith or an interest in process art, but because of the results that are produced.
And as long as the process allows for the discovery and challenge of new formal problems, like the road revealing new sights and experiences, it is a path the artist should continue to follow well beyond the horizon line.
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