Collapsing View
Sean Bailey

Collapsing View was an exhibition of new work by studio artist Sean Bailey. Bailey’s practice entails multiple and complex processes of concealment informed by surrealist and Dadaist methods of chance. He typically combines mixed-media collage with painterly abstraction — often beginning a painting with a found image over which he paints layers of different colours and shapes. The result of this process is a hidden image whose now invisible content nevertheless informed the composition of the painting. Bailey had begun making sculptures utilising a similar working method with concrete, linen and wooden materials. Collapsing View brought together a series of twelve new paintings and a sculpture, each of which explore notions of transformation, renewal and decay.

A catalogue essay by Julian Day was produced for this exhibition as part of the 2014 Gertrude Contemporary and ARTAND Australia Emerging Writers Program. Julian Day was mentored by Gabriella Coslovich.

Sean Bailey graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts in 2005. He co-founded Joint Hassles with Harriet Morgan in 2005 and runs the record label Inverted Crux. He has held solo exhibitions at Sydney Contemporary (2013); RM, Auckland (2011); First Draft, Sydney (2007); Daine Singer (2011, 2013), Neon Parc (2010), West Space (2006, 2014), TCB Art Inc. (2005), Joint Hassles (2006, 2007) and Clubs Project Space (2005), Melbourne. He has participated in group exhibitions at Gambia Castle, Auckland (2009); the Amsterdam Biennial (2009); CAST, Hobart (2010); Sutton Gallery Project Space (2010), Hell Gallery (2009), Bus Gallery (2009), Utopian Slumps (2010), TCB Art Inc. (2009), and Seventh (2005), Melbourne. 

Sean Bailey is represented by Daine Singer, Melbourne.