Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

41. "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. :3P Fr ,r1 S IN AID OUT OF FASHION THREE now one-man ' shows of geometric painting coincide with two of abstract expressionism as if to signal the latter's death, or rather its relegation to the state of being just out of fashion. It's unfair of course to imply that the old style can no longer produce good things or that the new style will always pro- duce good things. But for minor artists, which means nearly all Australian artists, except perhaps Fairweather, new- ness does matter. The closer a minor artist is to the growing points of art the more likely he Is to absorb some of its aesthetic vitality. Let those whose art was formed ten years ago keep to their abstract ex- pressionism, but it's only proper that artists in their twenties like Stock - dale and Watkins should be tackling different prob- ;lems. What respect can they have for a style which is now as debased as hi TOM 'I'WINBER'S paintings (Little Gallery), imported from California for no good reason. Once upon a time a slash of paint could signify a howl in the wilderness, the artist's personal crisis; Twinber's are only a splash of color, to keep company with cur- tains and cushions, hang- ing lifeless on the wall. EXPERTISE BRIAN BLUNDY (Al- addins) at least has some expertise, the gestural parts do coalesce into a whole, though they are inclined to evade the Ls - sue, and turn into easy cityscapes or flowers. Eng- lish -trained, age 35, a re- cent arrival in Sydney, he hankers unsuccessfully af- ter a bit of hard edge in Lrn 1111110111111 llllllllllllllllllllllllllll M Minor artists lease note one or two pictures, but is best with standard ab- stract expressionism like Concerto - he moves in musical circles - or City in the Sun. Prices 25 to 80 guineas. CAMERON SPARKS (Macquarie) shows a few pleasant straightforward drawings of nice round girls in bathtubs; then a few pleasant straightfor- ward Cezanne still Ries in watercolor; then the touches of watercolor de- tach themselves front the Job of describing teapots or grapes, become greenish squares or triangles and take on a life of their own. Less happily in playful regroupings into rather whimsy harlequin figures unaware of their picture edge; most happily when they fill the sheet as "Un- persian Carpets" or, best, In "Beneath it all, you know" (where only the titles suffer from whimsy). Some do achieve an auth- entic, if dogged, grace. Prices 6 tc 30 guineas. PUZZLING JOHN STOCKDALE (Hungry Horse) provides another first ose-man show, and lots more tiny squares - one is :ailed, puzzlingly, 388 Squares, though it surely contains far less. Usually a mosaic rectangle of the tiny squares and another smal- ler plain grey rectangle huddle together on one margin of a pure white canvas. In one case its a triangle on the margin. Sometimes these mar- ginal elements have a few stray crosses hovering, very casually What's it all a%etiV?yiNhy. all that very empty white space? The catalogue biog- raphy tells us he's an atomic physicist, and , there's no doubt that the romantic immaculacy of the science laboratory has something to do with these paintings, More specifically the stray particles must be lost electrons in the void looking for a mother nucleus, or something. Only in "Double Action" does this seeps to resolve itself in terms of familiar pictorial structure. However, another series seems uniformly success- ful: the mosaic sets off bravely to cross the entire canvas as a speckled band, recharging itself with subtle color changes on the way. In "Melody" two bands make the Journey and subtly and moat satisfy- ingly bend each other out of the strict horizontal. These banded pictures also incline to darker colors, purple and raw canvas for example, which one may prefer to the leaping lolly -pink found in the green and orange mosaics on white. But, this kind of paint- ing Is unfamiliar in Aus- tralia, and without fully coming to terms with ft there is much to enjoy in its celebration of modern marvels, of true -life science fiction. Sensible prices for a first exhibition, 35 to 100 guineas, plus a nine -tooter at 300. :YOUNGER DICK WATKINS (Wai- ters Gallery) Is younger, but this is not his first exhibition. He seems much more a real artist than any of the others this week. That is you can tell his puitements come from pictorial things. The relion between iliac and red cats thrill him, so can two overlapping planes The week in Art. By Daniel Thomas with their recession and advance, so can the majes- tic upward movement of a curve. This has caused him to be described, quite justly, as an aesthete, or an ele- gant, and it looks as if he mistakenly takes these for dirty words, for he has left the paint handling and the edges slightly scruffy; nor does he worry If the previ- ous picture on the panel grins through the surface. Once, in a superb pic- ture called "Moscow" (of a red square; that's how his terse identification - titles go) the previous pic- ture made a positive and acceptable contribution to the bland background. Here, although his color is, as always, very lovely, he doesn't seem to have pushed his good pictorial Ideas around quite hard enough, though "Float" and "Joy Ride' come near. Other good ones: "Aes: lel," a mauve square, with red flaps, suspended on a mauve ground; "Bloom," a black segment pushing up a palest lilac one, into white. A major influence must be Richard Smith, though "Package Deal" the closest, is the worst; and instead of casual oil on canvas, Watkins uses plastic pair t on board. Seven largish panels, 100 and 150 guin- eas. WHAT'S ON IN ART Newcastle City Art Gallery: Australian Print Survey. Von Berteuch, New- castle: Irvine Homer, retrospective. Clune: Stuart Devlin, sculpture. Hungry Horse: John Stockdale, paintings. Walters: Dick Wat- kins, Paintings. Dar hunt: God- frey Miller. Macquarie: Cameron Sparks, watercolors. Gallery A: Mixed show, Little Gallery: Tom Twinber, U.S.A. paint- ings. Madding: Brian Blundy, paintings. Quixote, 23A Avalon Parade, Avalon: Mixed show (NEW GALLERY) OPENING TUESDAY Wales House: Pra- phan Eirisouta, Wood- cuts from Thailand. OPENING WEDNES- DAY Stern: Albiaton, Co- hen, Wall, Macqueen, Melbourne painters. OPENING THURSDAY Crana, Wollongong: Paul Delprat, paintings. OPENING FRIDAY Von Bertouch, New- castle: Francis Lymbur- ner, drawings.