Visual Arts / Patternmakers, Binns, Blackwell, Darroch & Munro. At Tuggeranong Arts Centre, until October 11. Reviewed by KERRY-ANNE COUSINS.

Patterns have always been with us.

Early humans must have used the patterns made by animal footprints to follow prey and in our modern world patterns are studied in scientific research to try and understand the structures of the universe. The artists in this exhibition are fully cognisant of the importance of patterns in scientific research and contemporary computer science but they are also aware as artists of the complex visual pleasure that patterns can provide.

Vivienne Binns has long responded to the ability of patterns to communicate a sense of time and place. In her art practice Binns has reused domestic patterns taken from lino and wall paper to evoke the domestic environment and its related social complexities .

In her current work 42 very small boards (approx. 14 x 22cm) are painted in bright visually appealing colours, their abstract patterns demonstrating a variety of painting styles. A small landscape is a slightly odd misfit among the abstract patterns. Is it a subtle reference to the 9 x 5, 1889 exhibition of the Australian Impressionists where the artists painted on similar sized cigar box lids? An indication perhaps of Binns’ interest in the means of creative expression expressed through historical art movements.

Al Munro works across many media, including textiles. Her paintings – Quiltwork 2, 1-3 – are based on a traditional quilt making pattern called tumbling blocks. Although like quilts her painted surface is flat, the clever use of visual patterning makes it appear as if the flat patterns are three dimensional providing both surface tension and vitality. The concept of mapping the world through pattern becomes central to what Munro sees as essential to both science and craft practice.

Richard Blackwell’s precisely constructed works with their carved grooved surfaces have a seductive appeal. These works consisting of two cross shapes (X), a circle (Void) and (Main Sequence) a flowing ribbon-like design are two -dimensional. However on close viewing they morph visually and almost magically into fluid three dimensional forms. The work, Main Sequence, appears to become almost a living form twisting and moving across the wall space. Blackwell’s works investigate the world of technology while acknowledging the void of loneliness that can lie at its centre.

Ham Darroch’s creative reuse of found objects is characteristic of his art practice. A discarded mallet becomes part of a refined sculpture. Twelve individual floats (wooden objects like trowels used to smooth cement) are arranged on the wall like an armada. Seen from one direction the side of each float is painted with a crisp blue design or if you approach from the opposite direction the design is painted in red. It makes for an innovative and arresting wall sculpture in which contemporary environmental issues of recycling are channelled through contemporary modes of expression.

The artists in this exhibition have looked beyond the flat surface to explore not only the possibilities of colour, pattern and design but the optical possibilities that are present in the creative manipulation of the flat surface.