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Art

Pictures at Two Exhibitions

Jan Walker

Mr Melvin N. Day (Director of the National Art Gallery) in his speech at the opening of the Autumn Exhibition of the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts, in a rather backhanded way unsuccessfully attempted to defend the place of large exhibitions. His hesitance is well-founded since it is the sheer bulk of pictures which overcomes the viewer even before their merit or lack of it can be determined. And unhappily on this occasion the disarray has not left many promising paintings to discover.

There are a few paintings, as there always are, which stand out, perhaps, merely because of the viewer's desperation in trying to achieve a foothold and sometimes too because the picture stops and holds fast the viewer's meandering gaze.

Juliet Peter in her mock—Rita Angus Highway and her two Bolton Street pictures displays a professionalism and cool style which by its very understatement immediately sets itself free from its more laboured neighbours. The same professionalism is seen in two works of Basil Honour, Autumn Study and Harbour View. The latter abstract especially has a muted harmonious effect which becomes a companionable presence with longer attention.

Both Roger Hart and Ruth Browne have made credible attempts at interpreting Maori mythology; Roger Hart in two heavy Titian-like oils and Until Browne in her total-colour blocks, the best of which is her Monastic Blue.

Among the few paintings I found at all inventive was Roy Cowans Deep Strait an impressive piece of work full of waving water movements and rudimentary suggestions of the deep unknown inhabitants of the lower reaches. His style is free and smooth and his combination of reality and fantasy is executed most effectively. The picture by Newton Roberts titled Picton Ferry is worth noting because of its sharp-edged clarity and unusual vantage point.

Perhaps the most interesting picture of the exhibition is a study by Helene Carkeek titled Because I do not hope to turn again a quotation from T. S. Eliot's Ash Wednesday. This is a most thought-provoking study and the artist has used geometric designs to break up the body components and etch out a feeling of command and solitude.

Two landscapes of interest are Kan Mercer's Coastline similar to many of Hubert Ellis's topographic paintings. Bill Emsley's Mahia Summer is a soft summertime haze of gentle intoxication(!). I also liked Queenie Aitkin's February Garden for no other reason than the combination of yellows, greens and oranges which seemed stimulating enough to excuse the technical deficiencies of the picture.

Because of the dearth of the nearly 250 exhibits, pictures which are mediocre tend to become more important by comparison than they might have been if exhibited alone. Two pictures by Grahame Sydney of articles in suspension have a sharply three-dimensional effect against a beautiful dappled background though whether the retention of the geometrical pencil lines was necessary I would doubt. His picture Fabritius is Dead had some of the supernaturalism aroused by the hunged sparrow in Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz's Cosmos and certainly some of the same timeless and unlocalised mockery.

The exhibition will continue until May 11 and is worth a cursory look by those interested in the arts around and about town.

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The exhibition of the Manawatu Prize for Contemporary Art 1968 at present showing at the Bett-Duncan Gallery Cuba Street is, especially by contrast, exciting and alive. Although somewhat crowded conditions exist the pictures almost all without exception have something commendable about them and are a far cry from the conservatism on the hill.

The six paintings by the guest artist Colin McCahon in no way over-shadow the work of the other artists. The prize-winning picture Landscape by Edward Herbert Kindleysides is a quiet, forceful oil predominantly in greens and browns inducing a slightly threatening sinister atmosphere and excellently painted.

Among the other exhibits are two pictures by the Palmerston North painter Julia Van Helden, both slightly over painted and too commercially perfect. A painting titled Kaimai Tunnel No. 1 by Ted Bracy detailing the stratas and geomorphic features of a semi cross-sectional landscape in heavy colour is unusual and effective.

Christchurch painter Trevor Moffit's oil Miner Washing for Gold is rather over heavy and not up to the standard of many of his McKenzie series or his more recent landscapes. The three panel exhibit of Frank Davis, Anatomy of a Colonial Landscape has much of the brightness and colour of his screen printing and his landscape has the bold, surging thrust of defiantly rebelling youth.

Buck Nin's Road to Pahiatua from Kawakawa is an open, adventurous piece of work, the simple huts on the hills in the background representing village community life, the large motif covering the centre of the picture, the urban sprawl, and in the bottom foreground a cluster of tall apartment and office buildings, the three linked by the load of "progress" (with two way emphasis). It is an intelligent picture with an excellent integration of cultures and styles.

Exterior by Brent Wong somehow misses the interfusion of primitive simplicity and modern complexity but he has none the less produced and arresting and original work. The picture by Wong Sing Tai entitled 26 × ½ suffers from over-complexity but this black and white study is philosophically problematic and most striking to look at.

I hope the high quality of this exhibition ensures that its visit to Wellington will be an annual event and it certainly proves that an exhibition of varied, but a limited number of works, can be successful.