James Angus revels in physical and spatial conundrums. Through repetition and inversion he tests and expands the geometry inherent in everyday objects and natural phenomena, elegantly translating hypothetical mathematical scenarios into actual physical forms. In his latest exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, Angus has conjured three bicycles into a single, refined sculpture.

Like an object of childhood desire displayed in a shop window, the shiny, immaculately presented bicycle is incredibly seductive. We are drawn in by the instantly recognizable form, yet on closer inspection, subtle spatial disruptions become apparent. The geometric information contained in a conventional bicycle has in fact been replicated three times, resulting in a curious tripartied object akin to an off-register hallucination. Angus describes the work as “an object which is entirely solid, yet blurry…a sculpture-in-motion that vibrates between plural and singular.” Indeed, the multiplication of elements in the work creates the visual illusion of movement, despite the obviously static nature of the sculpture.

Viewing this strangely familiar object initiates a series of questions and re-evaluations, including a re-assessment of our own sense of sight. Is Angus suggesting three bicycles melded together as if the individual objects had been subjected to some kind of intense gravitational force? Or is it that we witnessing a single bicycle paused in the exact moment of organic replication, where each part of the structure is duplicating itself like series of mutating cells? However we approach Angus's immaculate sculpture, our understanding of the material world is challenged. Characteristically, Angus reveals the extraordinary in the ordinary and invites new and imaginative ways to consider the physical world.

Olivia Sophia, 2008

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James Angus has been exhibiting nationally and internationally for almost two decades. His work is held in major public and private collections in Australia and overseas, including the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Angus currently has work on display in the 2008 Biennale of Sydney, Revolutions: Forms that Turn, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev. Angus recently completed a major commission for the Connecteast freeway in Victoria (2008). In 2006 he had a solo exhibition at the Musuem of Contemporary Art in Sydney, curated by Rachel Kent, which toured in 2007 to the Institute of Modern Art in Brisbane the Bendigo Art Gallery in Victoria and the Art Gallery of Western Australia in Perth. James Angus was selected for the inaugural Primavera exhibition for young artists at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney in 1992. He completed a Masters of Fine Art at Yale University in 1998 as part of a Fulbright Postgraduate Award. In 2000, Angus was included in The Age of Influence at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and, in 1998, in Unfinished History at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. The 2002 Biennale of Sydney featured his monumental Shangri-La, a full-sized hot-air balloon suspended upside down inside the Sydney Opera House. This will be Angus’s fourth solo exhibition at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery.