In The Order of Things, Michel Foucault discusses ways in which sign systems generate and propagate meaning. Generally, there is a three way system consisting of signifier, signified and the connection between the two. Since the concept of connection or similitude inhabits both the signifier and the signified, the three aspects merge into one.  Similitude and connection take over the sign, with significance, commentary and text outside it.

This focuses interest on the nature of resemblance, and the process of connection. Foucault claims that when this happens, the eye can see and only see, the ear hear and only hear. Language and image both become little more than particular instances of representation. Significance is no longer inscribed into the fabric of the world. All that is left is representation, and signification becomes reflected in that representation. Image and language now have no point of departure, no end, and no future – only similarities and the spaces between different significations.

This is the dilemma of contemporary art of any kind – how to explore the spaces, and how to create meaning when only 'particular instances of representation' remain. As Alex Spremberg says, a river is never a river, but a place to go fishing or boating. We can perceive life only through a 'veil' of social and personal conditioning. The painting Horizontal Tilt, with which he won the BankWest award, challenges this conditioning and the particularity of representation. The work is therefore non-representational. It is a colour-field of paint in which nothing is 're-presented'. There are similarities to a Turneresque sunset, or a raging fire, with intensely saturated orange and yellow colour in the lower sections and lighter colours towards the top. In this way he aims to put the emphasis on the relationships between colour and paint, and not between signifier and signified.

Lucy Anne O’Dea continues the idea of making the paint itself contain the only reference to significance. The title of the work says it all; It’s just White Semi Gloss Acrylic Paint No 17. The process of applying the paint is the only aesthetic, and this aesthetic is created through the effect of the paint being heavily 'embossed' as it swirls and curls around making its own elegant patterns. Serena McLachlan, in her red, monochromatic composition, also states that her only purpose is to explore the possibilities of paint.

Katherine Hall also illustrates her main point by referencing back to the idea of a river. We may give a river a name, she says, but it is actually a flow of water. Her painting is Untitled as a way of avoiding the process of naming and of representing. It is made up of three vertical panels, two dark ones on either side of a lighter one, which is obviously the river. The dark panels suggest the impenetrability of the contexts and commentaries surrounding the river. The central panel is the 'flow' which also avoids specificity or significance. It is literally a space between two unknowns.

Galliano Fardin questions the nature of language, communication and significance in his work entitled Through Silence. Fardin states that Technology floods us with information, but this information has little to do with 'truth' or meaning. In fact, some of it is directed towards confusing and silencing us. His work is also in the style of colour-field painting. The density of colour makes it appear black with only subtle tonal variations. Through this invocation of silence and impenetrability he attempts to focus on the spaces between representation and meaning, on the process of signification, or its failure, rather than significance itself.

Information through technology is also the concern of Longin Sarnecki. His set of two digital prints shows images of greatly enlarged computer circuits. These are complex and suggest that the connections within this particular communication system are infinite; but although they may put masses of information on the computer screen they do not really create knowledge or understanding.

Lisa Wolfgramm continues the emphasis on paint and painting as the only significance that can be created. Her work is entitled Painting #163, and consists of an all-over pattern. She states that paintings are abstract and not abstractions. By this she means that they are not abstracted from external objects or the natural world but are direct presentations of the materials used. She illustrates by using material to do only what that material does, that the eye is primarily a means of seeing.

Susanna Castleden and Gosia Wlodarczac both illustrate the inadequacies and slippages of language by exploring the spaces between words and meanings and between whole languages. Castelden continues her theme of the naming of cyclones. Initially, this invokes the idea of trying to 'control' or at least understand huge, powerful natural forces by simply naming them. Of her work entitled Track she explains that cyclones 'track' across the surface of the globe, pre-named but not pre-plotted. In other words, to name these natural phenomena is in no way assists to understand their behaviour, movements or power. Describing and tracking them may connect these attributes with various significances but will never reveal their frightening realities. There is a further disconnection of meaning in the fact that these fearsome processes are presented in a very elegant and graceful style.

Wlodarczac entitles her drawing Vacant Speech and in it she explores the spaces between her inherited language, Polish, and her acquired language, English. She explains that with her left hand she 'draws' her understanding of Polish and with her right hand she 'draws' her understanding of English. Since the brain often has difficulty in switching backwards and forwards between the two, she experiences a sense of falling into the gaps between the two. To illustrate this she uses two engaging strategies. Firstly, there is a white, negative space in which the artist sits listening to different conversations. Secondly the drawing is in red and black. The viewer is invited to view the drawing through red coloured 'glasses' so that the red disappears. This disappearance signifies not just the spaces between languages but also between language and meaning generally. It is a way of looking without naming.

A few of the works in this exhibition are representational but even these refer to other texts and contexts through symbolism and allusion.  Kevin Robertson’s Red Uniform, for example, shows a young girl wearing a red uniform and facing a wall. This is a powerful invocation of the conformity and control which often stand behind the obligatory wearing of uniforms, whether in the armed forces or in the catering industry.

Reference: Foucault, M. (first published 1966) 'The Being of Language' in The Order of Things. English edition published by Routledge, 1989.