ianchandler.org

Ian Chandler, Nicholas Folland
Greenaway Art Gallery
Until Sunday

Some years ago, I suggested that Adelaide plan a museum of regional culture to house the work of our modernist artists, items of popular culture and the work of book illustrators. It was before the amazing Guggenheim satellite museum was built in Bilbao, Spain, which amply illustrates that such an investment can significantly transform the image and economy of a city.

Looking at the paintings of Adelaide artist Ian Chandler, who has continued working for many years despite few opportunities for national exposure, the idea makes sense. Chandler is only one artist of his generation with a large body of work that is rarely seen and in danger of disappearing into history.

In the late-1950s, there were 800 professional artists in Australia. Today, with three times the population, there are 12,000, outlining the dimension of the problem.

Ian Chandler's recent paintings are complex and intriguing. He overlays drawings of the theme of a work, creating a filigree of lines and thereby a density of texture. The result is a series of pyrotechnic works that can be engaged with at deeper and deeper levels.

Chandler is a fine artist, yet he is too old to be "discovered''. It seems middle-aged artists are no longer the fashion. An artist today has only a brief moment in which to establish a career, and in most cases they become anachronisms within a decade. Adelaide's Nicholas Folland is one of the young stars now on the crest of the wave. His ingenious and multi-skilled soft sculptures, seemingly inspired by the American Claes Oldenburg, might be classified as "neo-geo''. They adopt a minimalist aesthetic fused to pop. His stool upholstered with masticated chewing gum, titled Thinker, suggests a painful amount of self-abuse and conjures an image of a set of false teeth. The lateral associations displayed in his floating wall sculpture of handmade chairs, and the ironically Luddite Masters Voice, underline his vision.