James Geurts
Dissonance: tidal intervention 2025
steel, aluminium, aluminium print
Dissonance: tidal intervention is a conceptual site-responsive artwork developed to reference human impact on environmental flows, consisting of a civic sign structure holding a brightly coloured abstract image. The artwork draws attention to the specific way the nearby groyne reassigns tidal currents from a natural life force to a cultural resource through the preservation of the beach for human use. The pixelated and apparently incomplete design is taken from the artist’s filming of the location with an old analogue video camera—the flow of visual data is disrupted during the filming process to create pictorial distortion, reflecting environmental intervention through land management. These abstract signals reference the ecological data and networks that are beyond immediate human perception, a hidden underlying layer of the environment. The structure’s resemblance to council signage and creation of a passageway evokes the ways our experience of the landscape is directed and framed by established land use.
The artist will make a film relating to this work that will be screened during the Biennale, with funding from the Australian Government through Festivals Australia. This film will be screened nearby at Mantra hotel observatory room as part of the Tidal Movements series.
Based in Melbourne and London, Geurts' conceptually driven practice focuses on the way that cultural and natural forces intersect to shape both landscape and perception. Through abstraction, fieldwork, site-actions and studio research, his recent projects explore paradigms of measurement and commodification of water bodies, investigating concepts of time by traversing the primordial to the technological networks of the contemporary world. His site-actions often include modifying analogue and digital methods to emulate conditions of the site.
Geurts completed a Master of Fine Arts at RMIT University (2011) and Post Graduate research at Vrije Academie, GEMAK The Hague (2009). Recent projects include Latent Channel, ACME London Studio residency, Australia Council for the Arts, UK (2022); Time Zero: International Date Line, Sovereign Asian Art Prize Hong Kong (2022); and Flow Equation, TarraWarra Biennial, TarraWarra Museum of Art (2021). Solo exhibitions include Floodplain, National Gallery of Victoria (2018); Water Gate, Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taiwan (2017); and Resurveying Site, Zhulong Gallery Dallas Texas, USA (2014). Recent group exhibitions include The Habitat of Time, Arts Catalyst, London UK (2020) / Casula Powerhouse NSW (2018); Urban Heat Island, COLLUMNIA II, Cologne, Germany (2019); Fathom I, RESPONSIVE: International Light Art Projects and Dalhousie Art Gallery, Halifax, Canada (2018). Geurts work is held in major public and private collections, including Art Gallery of South Australia and The Nevada Museum of Art and Environment.
James Geurts is represented by GAGPROJECTS (Greenaway Art Gallery), Adelaide and Berlin.
This project was assisted by the Australian Government through the Festivals Australia program. It was generously supported by patrons Matt and Ally Heine, production partner Sculpture Co, and ACNL Engineers.
Images: James Geurts, Drawing horizon 2010 (top); James Geurts (bottom). Courtesy the artist.
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