Image: Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne, Brunswick
Justin Andrews will present ‘FORM / WORK’, an exhibition of new mixed-media works at Charles Nodrum Gallery in Richmond, Melbourne, from 12 September to 3 October 2026. The exhibition will open on Saturday 12 September with drinks from 3pm to 5pm and an electronic soundscape performance by Andrews.
The exhibition centres on collage-like compositions made from scraps of canvas and scavenged fabrics. Andrews slices and attaches the materials to painted grounds, producing works whose irregular fragments, gaps and angles are arranged within a deliberately structured visual language. The gallery describes the new work as a shift towards more direct, joyful and improvisational compositions.
According to the exhibition catalogue, the works appear spontaneous but involve sustained decisions about sequence, spacing and the relationships between individual elements. Their surfaces are built from found fabrics mounted on braced plywood panels, with the gallery listing a number of works dated 2022–2026. These include ‘Confirmation Bias Network’, ‘Constructive Position Distortion’, ‘Advanced Possibility System’ and ‘Unknown Ground Assembly’.
The catalogue places the new paintings in contrast with Andrews’s earlier practice, characterising the previous work as more laborious and indirect. The newer compositions are presented as more immediate, with the economy of the process allowing the artist to concentrate on the arrangement of materials and the effect of each decision. The resulting forms fracture and shift without losing their straight lines or geometric precision.
Sound is integrated into the exhibition’s account of Andrews’s studio process as well as its opening event. The catalogue describes the artist arranging scraps and supports across worktables while improvising compositions, with a flute and modular synthesiser nearby. Andrews’s interest in performance and physical intensity extends to the opening, where the exhibition will include an electronic soundscape performance from the artist.
Alongside the fabric-based works, the exhibition catalogue lists screen prints and a sculpture. ‘Painting / Sound I’ and ‘Painting / Sound II’, both from 2025, are two-colour screen prints on paper, while ‘Multi-Moiré (FORM / WORK)’ is dated 2026. The catalogue also includes earlier screen prints from 2023 and 2024, as well as ‘Memory Shard 2’, an aluminium work dated 2021.
Charles Nodrum Gallery, at 267 Church Street, Richmond, was established in 1984. Its programme includes painting, sculpture, works on paper, graphics and photography, alongside figurative, geometric, gestural, surrealist, socially engaged, installation and conceptually based practices. ‘FORM / WORK’ will be open Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm, or by appointment, through 3 October 2026.
