Alchemy

Went and saw the Alchemy exhibition at the Brett Whiteley Studio yesterday; I fall in love with him a little more each time. The guy working there was kind enough to let a group of us in even though it was closed to the public (should've checked the website before we visited). The theme was transcendence, and in addition to a pretty big selection of medium sized paintings, they had some of his massive crucifixion works, including this one:

I collected some quotes scrawled on the walls of the studio; some also from the original Alchemy catalogue; and some from within Alchemy the painting itself (he used a lot of text within his paintings). Here they are.

“Painting is an argument between what it looks like and what it means”
        [Anonymous; from studio wall]

“LIGHTS RED

    ….in the rain the car seeing the second floor window of the dull city Sunday anonymous anywhere
        explosion of laugher (as) nobody reads poetry past the glass, the needle or the aerial photograph….

LIGHTS GREEN”

        [Anonymous; from original Alchemy catalogue]

“‘Remind anyone who’s got a point that there isn’t one’ flicked Ho to Mao twinkeringly one second, one morning in the carrot patch while they worked out south and south-east. Mao looked at him and knew he would never have to say another word.
To constant care, the most extraordinary of silences.”
        [Anonymous; from original Alchemy catalogue]

“Nothing waits at the centre of the brain except death”
        [Whiteley; from original Alchemy catalogue]

“He who sees further renders less of what he sees, however much he renders”
        [Jean Cocteau; from original Alchemy catalogue]

“Zen seeks only the light man can find in himself. It tolerates no hindrance to this seeking. Clear every obstacle out of your way. If on your way you meet Buddha, kill him! If you meet the Patriarchs, kill them! If you meet the Saints, kill them all! That is the only way of reaching salvation!”
    Any further questions?
        Love to you 3
            Bob
            (Hughes)”
        [Bob Hughes, in postcard to Whiteley; from original Alchemy catalogue]

“IT is completely linguistically indescribable”
        [Whiteley; from original Alchemy catalogue]
        [One of the panels from Alchemy is a white canvas with IT painted in massive black letters...]

“I see that you believe these things because I tell you them; but you do not know the reason for them, and therefore, in spite of being believed, their meaning is still hidden.”
        [Dante; from original Alchemy catalogue]

“The hard thing to face is not that the emperor has not clothes: it is that beneath the raiment, there is no emperor.”
        [Text cut-up pasted onto Alchemy panel]

“As a child, he spent a good deal of his time just sitting quietly, contemplating the strangeness of things. His grandmother once saw him gazing out of the window, and asked what he was thinking about. He looked round, said the one word Skin, and turned his gaze out through the window again.”
        [Text cut-up pasted onto Alchemy panel]