Fahn (James Gardiner)
Fahn (James Bruce Gardiner) 1973, is a Sydney based artist, with a strong focus in ambiguity, perception and digital fabrication. Formerly an award-winning Architect and inventor, his achievements include the world’s first 3D printed reef (2011-14) and the development of the FreeFAB 3D print Wax system (2012-2017) used for the Elizabeth line, London Underground project. James has been recognised with numerous awards, scholarships and press coverage - including National Geographic, New Scientist and the Economist.
Fahn (James Gardiner’s artist pseudonym) dedicated himself full time to his art practice in 2018, after many years of exploration, and he continues to engage with technologies in novel ways. Fahn completed an artist residency at UNSW Art & Design, where he pursued the design and fabrication of a large 3D printed ‘Shard’ sculpture for Sculpture by the Sea in 2018. He has since pioneered new methods of integrating digital machine cutting with traditional drawing and painting techniques within the postgraduate Master of Fine Arts program at the National Art School. In line with James former career as an inventor, James works across multiple mediums and materials, is constantly experimenting and pushing his work into new territory.
Fahn’s latest exhibition, Presence, explores unknowing and presence through a play with ambiguity and 'the perspectival flip'. Two series, 'Sentience' floor drawings and 'Presence' digitally fabricated relief paintings, investigate our shifting perception in the digital age. Rooted in architectural abstraction, these works invite viewers to engage with multi-perspectival ambiguity. The 'Sentience' series begins as gestural floor drawings, consciously created without intention. 'Presence' evolves these drawings through collaboration with a 3D digital cutting machine, compounding 'perspectival flips'. This conscious engagement with ambiguity, blending digital and analogue techniques, aims to create moments of contemplation. Viewers are invited to recognize the unknowing in our shared human condition and connect with the present moment.
“The vision for my art is to create conscious presence through multi-perspectival ambiguity. My training as an architect and inventor steeped me in abstraction - flipping from plan, section, to detail - often within the same drawing. Our collective perception is equally being re-trained by the plethora of images that we consume through social media and other channels – from first person drone view, to the microscopic, portrait, and celestial images from satellites. This rapid shift in viewpoints I call the ‘perspectival flip’, our cognitive ability to quickly switch perception and understanding as new images present.
Humans are uncannily good at pattern recognition, but we often get this wrong. This is called Pareidolia – seeing patterns where they don’t exist, such as a rabbit in the clouds. My art pushes into this realm, exploring ambiguity and unknowing, a uniquely human quandary explored by philosophers for millennia. I play with misperception, each viewer brings different readings to an artwork, adding something of themselves in engagement with the artwork.
My art begins with gestural abstraction as floor drawing, creating consciously but without intention, making space for what arises. For me, each drawing contains ‘perspectival flips’, a reading that shifts from topographic, to elevational, to portrait... I then lean into these ambiguities in my collaboration with a 3D digital cutting machine, abstracting the original floor drawings into mixed media artworks. By working with the machine as an extension of myself and working consciously, I allow for a new artwork to arise. This is often a compounding of ‘flips’, creating ambiguity and conscious moments of contemplation.
In this conscious engagement with ambiguity, and the digital and analogue tools that I use, I find presence. Moments of contemplation in engagement with the artworks. It is this presence that I seek to share in my ambiguous ‘perspectival flip’ artworks. An engagement with the moment, a recognition of unknowing, a connection to our human condition.”
Opening Hours
Wednesday - Friday 12:00 - 5:00 pm
Saturday 12.00 - 4.00 pm
Other times by appointment
We acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we live and work– the Cammeraygal and Wallumedegal people of the Eora Nation. We pay respects to their elders past, present and emerging.