Diagram for a left-handed batsman

In sporting parlance Pat Macan would be described as a cricket tragic. As well as being a fan, he has played cricket and has a deep understanding of the game in all its nuances. Macan looks to cricket for its existential complexity. In a series of minimalist works, he brings the notational passages of cricket together with an account of making and viewing art. Presented on a boxy monitor at the centre of the group, The life and death and life of Ewen Chatfield (2011) comprises digital footage taken from Television New Zealand film shot in Auckland in the summer of 1975. The footage shows nearly three-and-a-half minutes of the last hours of a five-day test between New Zealand and England. Number 11 batsman Ewen Chatfield, then a young cricketer in his test debut, is hit in the head by a 'bouncer' and falls unconscious. Minutes later, the TVNZ footage is resumed, showing Chatfield being revived and stretchered off the field after his momentary death. Accompanying the video is a series of drawings in black oil stick titled None for none (8 ball maiden) 1-8 (2011). Like the pair Diagram for a left-handed batsman and Diagram for a right-handed batsman (2011) these works, framed in clear acrylic box frames, function as objects. Ewen Chatfield's accident is a notorious moment in cricket as well as New Zealand history. The life and death and life of Ewen Chatfield and its companion works recreate the reductive force of the incident as a meditation on moments between life and death and the relationship between cause and effect.