AARON FELL-FRACASSO FORMWORK
19 MAY - 17 JUNE 2023
In the studio Aaron Fell-Fracasso has a range of tools to get paint onto a surface. There are wide edged trowels, screeding brushes with soft bristles and concrete finishing knives. Oil paint has been poured into a stack of cartridges ready to be loaded into a caulking gun. He can use this to quickly apply vibrant colour to a trowel or extrude it straight onto the work as a wormy line. The method means an idea becomes action almost immediately. This is abstraction that repurposes construction methods, holding within it the correlations between physical labouring and the artist’s studio.
It's there in the title FORM WORK. In construction this refers to the mould used in the making of a concrete slab or wall. When set, this mould or form is then removed though its trace may remain in surface indentations and texture. Much of this labour is about covering up, correcting, smoothing or re-surfacing. For Fell-Fracasso, these techniques become distinct moves left as a gutsy palimpsest of his actions. Squidgy generous slabs of colour are troweled on, broomed, smeared and smudged. The act becomes the painting and the painting is a record.
Ideas around crafting and labour are critical to Fell-Fracasso. Growing up in an industrial Wollongong, the artist had a varied education in the understanding of materials. As an art school student, he worked nights on track maintenance hauling sleepers and welding, and later construction.
The worlds of labouring and visual art presented as counterforces but overlapped in terms of material possibilities. This knowledge presents itself in his language of marks and the constructed quality of the frames. The texture of his paintings has departed from the gloss of oil and is more akin to that of a rendered wall. Paint is heavily mixed with sand and as the artist describes, “It’s not buttery anymore. It’s more like butter with sugar in it.” Rather than creating a matte surface, it feels like light is bouncing off particles, bringing a fragmented vibrancy to the hues. He sees his wild palette as “more charged, electric, caustic,” applying colours that “go against an earthy base.”
Maroon Rendered on Yellow, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board. 162 x 121.5 cm. AUD 9200
Turquoise Rendered on Raw Umber, 2023. Oil, sand and acrylic on board. 147 x 122 cm. AUD 7900
The dimensions of the frame (about the width his outstretched arms might reach) suggests a wall marked by time and intervention. It has been a recent move on some works to curb the expanse of colour through the application of a border. This is informally squeezed out through a caulking gun. It is a humorous capping off that makes correlations between the finished edge around a slab of concrete and the decoration on a cake.
Continuing this, construction material has been brought in. Reinforcement mesh used in concrete slabs is exposed here as a grid that extends the dimensions of a painting. A found timber plank scuffed by use attaches neatly to another major work.
Given Fell-Fracasso’s background and the industrial context of Wollongong, it is a development that feels quite personal. The desire to embed evidence of labour in a painting could be seen as the artist reckoning with his context and work history, but this structural quality is then radically paired with glorious, unexpected colour dynamics and impulsive marks.
Yellow Ochre Rendered on Yellow with Pink Particle Board, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board with particle board, timber and expansion foam, 162 x 212 cm. AUD 14,500
In galleries and magazines, art can present as a magic trick. The adjustments and deliberations attached to making something then disappear in the move from studio to exhibition. Countering this, Fell-Fracasso offers inscriptions of a painting’s history.
FORM WORK is a record of the artist’s time spent at this surface, delivering immersive and sensory qualities through a diversely acquired understanding of materials.
Words by Melody Willis
Yellow Ochre Rendered on Blue, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board. 182 x 150 cm. AUD 12,500
Green Rendered On Pink, 2023, Oil, acrylic and sand on board,182 x 150 cm. AUD 12,500
Warm Grey Rendered on Raw Umber, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board with enamel painted reinforcement mesh
122 x 202 cm. AUD 9200
Red Oxide Rendered on Yellow Ochre with Colour Swatch, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board,162 x 121.5 cm. AUD 9200
Naples Yellow Rendered on Red, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board. 147 x 122 cm. AUD 7900
Pinkish Grey Rendered on Maroon, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board. 147 x 122 cm. AUD 7900
Orange Oxide Rendered on Raw Umber With Found Plank, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board with found timber plank.
171 x 140 cm. AUD 9800
Red Oxide Rendered on Yellow Ochre with Pink Border, 2023, Oil, sand and acrylic on board, 150 x 115 cm. AUD 7900