Brett McMahon’s practice is one of simultaneous excavation and construction, both of material and mind. In his third solo exhibition with Annandale Galleries, Un Earth features some of the artists most accomplished and considered work to date. The application of paint on handmade paper, linen and timber is immediately met with incision and erosion. He interrogates, contributes and strips away the histories of his materials and in so doing asks us to do the same with our experience of past present and imagined future which are just as open to fabrication and manipulation.

Through his extensive reading of W.G. Sebald, McMahon was “opened to being more observant and time sensitive…each reading uncovers narrative arcs and structures that add depth and compelling complexity”. Something similar could be said of McMahon’s work, as each element gains strength from patiently making, re-making and un-making in order to imbue the material with a sense of ill-defined history. Of the large floor sculpture Colony, an assemblage made from painted pieces of repurposed timber, McMahon recalls a coal seam rock shelf, an aerial view of the Los Angeles cityscape and an unsettling future wasteland all at once, each intimately linked to his personal experiences.

Whatever the impetus for each creation, the final works are universally accessible and strengthened by a maturity that comes only when one is so intimately connected to material properties and the way in which they can be made to resonate. Being present with the work is a transformative process that wholly envelops, not simply due to the significant scale, but through the pulsating patterns and the physical resilience exhibited under pressure and tension.