Five Walls Gallery

Please join us this Friday from 6-9pm for the opening of the much anticipated Abstraction 2026. Abstraction 2026 brings together the work of twelve artists working in abstraction and non-objective and includes: Kubota Fumikazu @kuboat Sean Hogan @sphogan Daniel Hollier @danhollier Franky Howell @frankyhats Emma Langridge @emma.langridge Keisuke Matsuura @keisuke_matsuura Sarah Robson @sarahsrobson Britt Salt @brittsalt Vivian Cooper Smith @viviancsmith Lachlan Stonehouse @lachlanstonehouse Max Lawrence White @maxlawrencewhite Michael Vandorpe @michael_s._l._vandorpe For a catalogue of available works contact Missy at [email protected] @missy_u_

Abstraction 2026 continues today and includes these two works by Melbourne based artist Max Lawrence White: Max Lawrence White (b. Melbourne) is a painter whose practice is centred on the perceptual and conceptual possibilities of colour. Working within and against the traditions of geometric abstraction and hard-edge painting, White explores the interplay between structure and contingency, often employing systems of chance to generate colour relationships and compositional outcomes. White’s earlier works were influenced in part by his Japanese heritage, drawing on spatial and compositional logics derived from tatami mat arrangements, where structure is governed by culturally embedded systems of order and auspicious placement. This emphasis on rule-based organisation continues to inform his practice, even as it is tested and expanded. This is evident in recent bodies of work such as Measures Concluded (2021), where modular compositions are constructed through processes of layering, cutting and reconfiguration, and where mis-tint paints introduce subtle disruptions within otherwise ordered chromatic systems. In A Challenge of Biases (2025), modular geometric structures are likewise used as a fixed framework; however, colour is determined through algorithmic processes in which palettes are generated via randomised computational procedures. Here, chance is introduced at the level of selection rather than material, positioning painting as a negotiation between control and indeterminacy. Across these bodies of work, White positions painting as a site where order and indeterminacy coexist. White holds a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) from RMIT University (2011) and an Honours degree from the Victorian College of the Arts (2012). He has exhibited extensively across Australia, including multiple solo exhibitions with Artereal Gallery, Sydney, and Five Walls Gallery, Melbourne, where he is represented. His work has been featured in publications including Aesthetica, VAULT, and The World of Interiors, and is held in collections including the Justin Art House Museum (Melbourne) and COMO Art (Netherlands). @maxlawrencewhite @missy_u_

Abstraction 2026 continues this week and includes these stunning works by Melbourne based artists Sean Hogan, you may recall his sell out booth at the @melbourneartfair in February this year. Sean Hogan is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans painting, print, and sculpture. His practice employs system-based processes and structured sets of rules to explore formal aesthetics such as geometry, color theory, proportion, and materiality. These elements reflect an algorithmic approach that bridges the gap between human interaction and both physical and digital environments. His recent accomplishments include being featured in the National Gallery of Victoria’s (NGV) Melbourne Nowsurvey of contemporary art (2022–2023) with his large-scale work Volume I (2022). He has also exhibited at LaTrobe Art Institute (2018) and participated in art fairs such as Spring 1883 and Sydney Contemporary(2021). His work has been acquired by significant institutions, including the NGV and Artbank, for their permanent collections. Additionally, Hogan was commissioned by video game developer Tantalus to create a public artwork currently displayed in inner Melbourne. In addition to his visual art practice, Hogan has garnered several prestigious awards, including the 2021 Australian Book Design Award and the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Award in both 2020 and 2021. He has also received the Australian Graphic Design Association Award in 2020 and 2021. His collaborative projects have included work with Wired Magazine, Apple Music, and The New York Times. He has also contributed to industry discourse through lectures at institutions such as the NGV, Victorian College of the Arts, Typographics 2021, Swinburne University, RMIT University, and the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Pictured: CS02.01 2021 synthetic polymer aerosol on canvas boards 126 x 90 cm CS02.02 2021 synthetic polymer aerosol on canvas boards 126 x 90 cm CS02.03 2021 synthetic polymer aerosol on canvas boards 126 x 90 cm @sphogan @missy_u_

Final days to see De / formed curated by Craig Easton and includes: Fan Zhongming (CHN/JP) Hiromichi Ichino (JP) Merric Brettle (AU) Craig Easton (AU/NZ) If De/formed suggests a removal of Form(alism), then what remains? Another form of course, and another and another, until there’s… nothing. But a whole lot of it. (This is better than nothing.) Scientifically speaking, what happens when you get down to the last Russian doll? Is it the end of something, or just the beginning? Is Kaluza Klein the mother of invention? When is De/formed deranged? Which is to say, is an arrangement undone, necessarily deranged? Or simply De/formed? Four artists consider their abstract practices in relation to the show’s title. Each has their own affiliation and history working with Formalist ideas and constructs while being equally engaged in the pulling apart of such things to create open works of indeterminate presence.Working through and between mediums of painting, object, drawing and video, there’s an ongoing question around what Formalist practices might mean and look like today. Pictured: Fan Zhong Ming Two Twisted Cubes 1993 acrylic on plywood 56 x 36 cm @fan_zhongming For a catalogue of available works contact Misuzu at [email protected] @missy_u_

Final days to see De / formed curated by Craig Easton and includes: Fan Zhongming (CHN/JP) Hiromichi Ichino (JP) Merric Brettle (AU) Craig Easton (AU/NZ) If De/formed suggests a removal of Form(alism), then what remains? Another form of course, and another and another, until there’s… nothing. But a whole lot of it. (This is better than nothing.) Scientifically speaking, what happens when you get down to the last Russian doll? Is it the end of something, or just the beginning? Is Kaluza Klein the mother of invention? When is De/formed deranged? Which is to say, is an arrangement undone, necessarily deranged? Or simply De/formed? Four artists consider their abstract practices in relation to the show’s title. Each has their own affiliation and history working with Formalist ideas and constructs while being equally engaged in the pulling apart of such things to create open works of indeterminate presence.Working through and between mediums of painting, object, drawing and video, there’s an ongoing question around what Formalist practices might mean and look like today. Pictured: Craig Easton Excavation / Accumulation / Mountain Building Painting 2024-2025 acrylic on canvas board mounted on cardboard 40 x 30 x 6 cm For a catalogue of available works contact Misuzu at [email protected] @craig_easton_art @missy_u_

Continuing this week is De / formed curated by Craig Easton and includes: Fan Zhongming (CHN/JP) Hiromichi Ichino (JP) Merric Brettle (AU) Craig Easton (AU/NZ) If De/formed suggests a removal of Form(alism), then what remains? Another form of course, and another and another, until there’s… nothing. But a whole lot of it. (This is better than nothing.) Scientifically speaking, what happens when you get down to the last Russian doll? Is it the end of something, or just the beginning? Is Kaluza Klein the mother of invention? When is De/formed deranged? Which is to say, is an arrangement undone, necessarily deranged? Or simply De/formed? Four artists consider their abstract practices in relation to the show’s title. Each has their own affiliation and history working with Formalist ideas and constructs while being equally engaged in the pulling apart of such things to create open works of indeterminate presence.Working through and between mediums of painting, object, drawing and video, there’s an ongoing question around what Formalist practices might mean and look like today. Pictured: Merric Brettle Pattern Finding 1 2016 acrylic automotive lacquer on board 52.5 x 42 cm For a catalogue of available works contact Misuzu at [email protected] @brettle.merric @missy_u_

Continuing at the gallery today is De / formed a group exhibition curated by Craig Easton with works by: Fan Zhongming (Shanghai) Hiromichi Ichino (Yokohama) Merric Brettle (Melbourne) Craig Easton (Melbourne/Dunedin) Titles come before words. That’s usually so. Just as paintings come first. Arriving fully formed visual things, With language complete. Next, it’s portioning out the words, descriptions. Deforming the good bits to make them conform. About that. It’s impossible to speak for all artists. Is it? Sometimes art is made to be difficult. Increasingly, art needs to be …belligerent. (But only to the degree we say so.) What of rights attached to images and objects? Can an image have rights? Probably only if it has the right image. And no one objects. What? Sometimes mute is good. It’s on your remote control, your iPhone too. Impossibility and absence take root, take form. There’s not much here. Really. If De/formed suggests a removal of Form(alism), then what remains? Another form of course, and another and another, until there’s… nothing. But a whole lot of it. (This is better than nothing.) Scientifically speaking, what happens when it gets down to the last Russian doll? Is it the end of something, or just the beginning? Is Kaluza Klein the mother of invention? When is De/formed deranged? Which is to say, is an arrangement undone, necessarily deranged? Or simply De/formed? Pictured: Hiromichi Ichino Landscape DCS-B 2025-12 wood, paper, acrylic paint, pencil, line, tape 60 x 61.2 x 2.7 cm @hirom_ichi_no

Opening Friday April 10 from 6-9pm is De/formed curated by Craig Easton: Fan Zhongming (Shanghai) Hiromichi Ichino (Yokohama) Merric Brettle (Melbourne) Craig Easton (Melbourne/Dunedin) Titles come before words. That’s usually so. Just as paintings come first. Arriving fully formed visual things, With language complete. Next, it’s portioning out the words, descriptions. Deforming the good bits to make them conform. About that. It’s impossible to speak for all artists. Is it? Sometimes art is made to be difficult. Increasingly, art needs to be …belligerent. (But only to the degree we say so.) What of rights attached to images and objects? Can an image have rights? Probably only if it has the right image. And no one objects. What? Sometimes mute is good. It’s on your remote control, your iPhone too. Impossibility and absence take root, take form. There’s not much here. Really. If De/formed suggests a removal of Form(alism), then what remains? Another form of course, and another and another, until there’s… nothing. But a whole lot of it. (This is better than nothing.) Scientifically speaking, what happens when it gets down to the last Russian doll? Is it the end of something, or just the beginning? Is Kaluza Klein the mother of invention? When is De/formed deranged? Which is to say, is an arrangement undone, necessarily deranged? Or simply De/formed?

Final day to see Mimic’s Turn by Christian Capurro. Mimic’s Turn brings together works from Christian Capurro’s enclasticine and Disport series, presenting two distinct yet interconnected approaches to the abstracted other lives of figures, tools and pictures. The enclasticines are scanner-derived photographic works exhibited as inkjet prints. Produced by the misapplication of dust and scratch removal software to found and assembled images, the works emerge through processes of misreading and misrendering. Sources drawn from print media, advertising, reportage, and digital circulation are subjected to an explicitly technological form of interference, resulting in images that oscillate between excavation and erasure, analogue and digital. These fractured surfaces resist legibility, inaugurating states of rupture, contamination, and temporal slippage that complicate photographic indexicality. In contrast, the Disport works consist of unmodified photographic tripods deployed as sculptural and architectural elements. Presented ‘blind’, each tripod is activated through attachment—affixed to floors, walls, ceilings, or to other tripods—yet never to a camera, recording or surveillance device. The tripod, a tool designed to stabilise vision, is repurposed: much freer, less stable, more obstructive. Across fixed and variable stagings, the Disport works propose abstraction as a spatial and behavioural condition rather than an optical one. Together, these bodies of work articulate a sustained inquiry into systems of support, failure, and mediation. Abstraction is approached not as a withdrawal from the world, but as a means of reconfiguring how images, objects, and bodies operate within it. Open today 12-5pm To request a catalogue contact Missy on [email protected]

Continuing to March 28th is Mimic’s Turn by Christian Capurro: Mimic’s Turn brings together works from Christian Capurro’s enclasticine and Disport series, presenting two distinct yet interconnected approaches to the abstracted other lives of figures, tools and pictures. The enclasticines are scanner-derived photographic works exhibited as inkjet prints. Produced by the misapplication of dust and scratch removal software to found and assembled images, the works emerge through processes of misreading and misrendering. Sources drawn from print media, advertising, reportage, and digital circulation are subjected to an explicitly technological form of interference, resulting in images that oscillate between excavation and erasure, analogue and digital. These fractured surfaces resist legibility, inaugurating states of rupture, contamination, and temporal slippage that complicate photographic indexicality. In contrast, the Disport works consist of unmodified photographic tripods deployed as sculptural and architectural elements. Presented ‘blind’, each tripod is activated through attachment—affixed to floors, walls, ceilings, or to other tripods—yet never to a camera, recording or surveillance device. The tripod, a tool designed to stabilise vision, is repurposed: much freer, less stable, more obstructive. Across fixed and variable stagings, the Disport works propose abstraction as a spatial and behavioural condition rather than an optical one. Together, these bodies of work articulate a sustained inquiry into systems of support, failure, and mediation. Abstraction is approached not as a withdrawal from the world, but as a means of reconfiguring how images, objects, and bodies operate within it. To request a catalogue contact the gallery on [email protected] @missy_u_

Current to March 28 is “Mimic’s Turn” by Christian Capurro: Mimic’s Turn brings together works from Christian Capurro’s enclasticine and Disport series, presenting two distinct yet interconnected approaches to the abstracted other lives of figures, tools and pictures. The enclasticines are scanner-derived photographic works exhibited as inkjet prints. Produced by the misapplication of dust and scratch removal software to found and assembled images, the works emerge through processes of misreading and misrendering. Sources drawn from print media, advertising, reportage, and digital circulation are subjected to an explicitly technological form of interference, resulting in images that oscillate between excavation and erasure, analogue and digital. These fractured surfaces resist legibility, inaugurating states of rupture, contamination, and temporal slippage that complicate photographic indexicality. In contrast, the Disport works consist of unmodified photographic tripods deployed as sculptural and architectural elements. Presented ‘blind’, each tripod is activated through attachment—affixed to floors, walls, ceilings, or to other tripods—yet never to a camera, recording or surveillance device. The tripod, a tool designed to stabilise vision, is repurposed: much freer, less stable, more obstructive. Across fixed and variable stagings, the Disport works propose abstraction as a spatial and behavioural condition rather than an optical one. Together, these bodies of work articulate a sustained inquiry into systems of support, failure, and mediation. Abstraction is approached not as a withdrawal from the world, but as a means of reconfiguring how images, objects, and bodies operate within it. To request a catalogue of available work contact Missy on [email protected] @missy_u_ #christiancapurro #footscrayarts #artswest #contemporaryart #

Continuing this week at the gallery is “Mimic’s Turn” by Melbourne-based artist Christian Capurro. Pictured: Christian Capurro enclasticine / Mimic’s Turn 2020-2021 inkjet print on Canson Platine Photographic Rag Paper 1345 x 935 mm (image); 1525 x 1118 mm (sheet) To request a catalogue of available works contact Missy on [email protected] Open today 12-5pm. #christiancapurro