Diann Bauer uses the attraction of violent images from a number of diverse cultures to create large-scale paintings and installations. Her work addresses the image as spectacle: seducing us while simultaneously refusing the easy construction of narrative. The integration of varied visual styles in Bauer’s work generates a sense of confusion and dissolution between space, object and subject, which leaves us trying to decipher a narrative that seems graspable, but is just out of reach. Combining source material from nineteenth century Japanese woodcuts, European Baroque painting and experimental contemporary architecture, Bauer situates us within a swirling visually complex representation of space, time and movement.

bludgeonerator, Bauer’s ambitious work for The Showroom comprises a large, elaborately detailed wall drawing, executed on aluminium panels forming a wall that cut into the gallery space. In this way, by blurring the boundaries of where the work ends and the gallery space begins, bludgeonerator plays with our expectations of the distinction between work and built environment.