Abi Giltinan
Giltinan’s recent figurative works on paper concern themselves with the conflict of human sensation. A whirlwind of colourful, dreamlike collages presents a rich duality of pleasure and fear, chaos and harmony, fluidity and frozenness. Despite a measure of abstraction, there is also a recognisability in her use of figures and forms, to which the viewer responds almost familiarly, without filtering it or asking for immediate interpretation. There is a sense that the images are at once known and undiscovered, familiar and exotic.
The epitome of duality is perhaps found in the sensation of desire, which underpins Giltinan’s visual language. Be it hunger, sexual lust, or the quest for power, our desires can be seen as a parching madness; a chase that can never be satiated because its very nature is to be out of reach. In these drawings, ambiguous nudes are both seduced and haunted by their wants. Translucent bodies overlap and float through indeterminate scenes, are shadowed by visions, and seem to shift in and out of focus. At times, with elongated limbs intertwining unnaturally, these figures seem amorphous to the point of an explosion so that the inner becomes outer.
