Liverpool Street Gallery sits snugly in the centre of the prospering visual art scene of Sydney and has shown artists from the UK, United States and, of course, Australia. The gallery is an unpretentious space, and allows the artworks alone to mesmerize their audience. The vast windows invite passersby on Liverpool Street to catch a glimpse of the crowd developing inside, under the soft light. And, hence was my fate.

Berlin Zeit is the latest collection of artist Christopher Horder and is showing at Liverpool Street Gallery from February 26th to May 24th, 2011.
While I did not attend the Opening Drinks with the artist on March 2nd, walking into the gallery on March 17th, a balmy Thursday night, I was greeted with a smile and a glass of wine, and was captured by the colours and textures that exploded off the canvases before me.

One cannot help but be enthralled by the surfaces in front of them. Initially the artworks are overwhelming, the canvases spanning almost from floor to ceiling. However, the viewer becomes entranced, and seemingly drifts from where they are standing in the gallery and into the canvas, through the spontaneous swirls of acrylic colour and Indian ink to infinite possibilities.

The organic patterns that reverberate from the canvases are the result of an extensive and involved process. It seems Horder lets the medium speak for itself, stating that he soaks the canvases in water then allows the ink and paint to blend and expand, repeating this process until he is left with a picture.
Moreover, rather than merely numbering the works, Horder has entitled each work individually, with names that call into consideration a myriad of aspects of existence from the undetected elements of nature to the passing of time.

What's more, I also had the humbling privilege of meeting the artist himself. With a friendly disposition and eagerness to express his ideas, Christopher Horder approached us without hesitation or pretention, breaking the ice by asking us what our interests were. He spoke fluently of his practice and motivation and told us of his experiences in the thriving city of Berlin, where he produced his body of work in its entirety. He told tales of the culture, streetscapes and the many artists that flock there from across the globe.

Remaining spellbound upon leaving Liverpool Street Gallery, I stepped onto the street where the nightlife was beginning to ignite. Tattooed in my mind’s eye were the undeniably poignant images I had just seen in Berlin Zeit. What lingered, for me, was the awareness that Liverpool Street Gallery is such a charismatic space, and that Christopher Horder is an incredibly interesting and innovative artist. Both realizations amounting to the conclusion that Sydney’s art scene continues to flourish today, activating or continuing an innate curiosity within Sydney’s public.


Words: Sophie Grace

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