Sutton Gallery is pleased to present Apnea a solo exhibition by Raafat Ishak. Apnea is loosely based on a PhD research paper which was completed in late 2014. Investigating and discussing the 1915 painting Black Square by Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) and its relationship to Mecca’s black cube, the holy Kaaba in Saudi Arabia, the artist links both esteemed objects within a singular historical path.

Ishak states, Apnea is a collection of paintings, drawings, sculptures and a photograph generated through the ubiquitous acts of graduate research, experimentation, withdrawal, exclusion and fatigue. While still embroiled in and submitting to the canonical historical impetus of early Twentieth Century modernism and the obscene undertones of pagan desert practices, Apnea speculates on the complicity of the apathetic gesture in negotiating a troubled and grieving world.

The exhibition features 15, A4 sized paintings depicting a half black cube haphazardly occupying interim spaces within the National Gallery of Victoria: corridors, foyers, storage spaces and external courtyards. The half black cube resists and blocks light emanating from exhibition spaces. It articulates its inherent incapacity to socialise with art and hence its continuous state of flux, from one space to another, without being properly grounded or attributed a permanent display status. These will be accompanied by 40, A4 sized works on paper which collate drawings and source images drawn from a broader research into stadium architecture, Arab pagan practices and language, hot air ballooning, Malevich’s black square, twentieth century abstraction and images of crowds.