Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. MAY 1964 The Week in Art by Daniel Thomas THE Contemporary Art I Society's annual autumn exhibition now at David Jonas is where they select drastically in order to emphasise quality. The spring exhibition is where they squeeze in everybody they can; and the Young Contemporaries, recently seen, is for the 30 and tinders who (it is hoped) set the experiment- al pace. The present exhibition contains only 30 works, and if it is the cream of the Society's membership it only proves that the high quality mostly reserves it- self for one-man shows, and that what passes for contemporary by virtue of its Startling materials (ma- chinery bits, photo-col- lage, etc.) can be pretty traditional in its effect, namely the effect of crafts manlike, luxury decoration. Maybe its unfair for the Gallery's antique furniture to be scattered around, but it does show that some of these assemblage and tex- ture paintings (e.g. by Charvat, Hitching, Byron, M. Hawkins) are no more poetic than a chest of drawers. Established paint- ers like Lewers, Coburn and Lynn speak out above the furniture more clearly; Salkauskas has an excel- lent watercolor of hori- zontal red white and blue bands which may be his breakthrough from ges- tural art; Perle Hessing has one of her better primitive folklore subjects. But the Contemporary Art Society Is where one expects to see something new, and there are two painters, Michael Sha and Dick Watkins, who make all the rest look de- eldely old-fashioned. Both can be classified as figura- tive pop artists. Both are rather scandalously eclec- tic, Watkins especially, who having worked through quite a range of the latest avant garde styles in the past year now arrives at a weird combination of Jack Smith's striped optical puzzles and of torn poster forms done all In paint; plus soldiers. Experiment and risk Yet here is Inventive de- sign, fresh color, amplitude of scale (and sizes, and above all a sense that for these painters art is a con - miming and serious activ- ity, requiring much thought, experiment and risk, and at the same time an activity leaving room for gleeful enjoy- ment, albeit fairly dead - pen. No hobby - painters these; they appear stun- ningly professional .amongst most of their colleagues, who is not eclectic at under 30? May- be such well directed mainstream eclecticism is a better launching pad for a young artist than is any carefully nurtured small personal deviation front the brackish billabong of post -impressionism. Veda Arrowsenith's paint- ings at Barry Stern's are mostly abstract, mostly in sharp dye or ink colors- pink, emerald, turcplo se -- though occasionally pop- pies or hibiscus or a tropical reef island will emerge (Miss Arrowsmith works in Queensland). The technique apparently makes much use of a collage of torn colored tissue papers embedded in PVA, like butterflies in amber, Or fibreglass. For one cannot help thinking of those decorative panels that broke out in restaurants and nightclubs a few years ago where leaves and flowers were embedded in some miracle synthetic. This may be decoration, but it is only marginally art. Taylor holds first show Ivan Englund's pottery downstairs at Barry Stern's has abandoned last year's sculptural aspirations and is content to be pottery in the best Japanese tradi- tion. Besides his familiar bottles and flasks there are some very interesting new types - large handsome crocks, large circular plat- ters. A most satisfying exhibition. Prices 3 gns. to 30 gns. Michael Taylor, born 1932, winner of the N.S.W. Government Travelling Art Scholarship for 1960, is now returned and is hold- ing his first one-man show at the Macquarie Galleries. Most of his time abroad was passed in Spain, and it would be conventional but no doubt wrong to ac- count for those black pic- tures by his Spanish experience - that is by Goya's black paintings, by the prevalent black cos- tume, by the blackness always considered charac- teristic of that country. In any case not all the 22 pictures are black; the majority are very at home in grey, touched with white, or sometimes rose, or apricot. But the best are black: "Black Spring," a disturbing hole, or "Carya- tid," an enormous 80 x 68 inches Pollock type action painting that probably evidences the passionate destruction of the human figure. Some of the paintings might seem too incoherent (there is an especially des- perate wriggly ggesture that crops up at dif !cult mom- ents), some of the smaller ones might seem charming "" Ii NMI It but empty. But "Caryatid" proves the lasting validity of the central abstract - expressionist style, and the value of this scholarship winner's achievement. Prices 25 gns. to 275 gns. John Bell whose exhibi- tion is at the Clune Gal- leries, has been a promis- ing young painter for sev- eral years now. He still is, but perhaps less ao. There are New Guinea subjects like ads for a Burns Philp tropical cruise in 1020, there are more Drysdale - Donald Friend references than previously, there is more unadulterated fan- tasy. Romanticism has gone to seed. I have sug- gested that this romantic's strength lay in the fact that Bohemia for him, was reality, Instead of the exotic in New Guinea and the north, the exotic was In his own world in Syd- ney. In those seedy in- teriors full of attractive young people it always seemed perfectly natural that some should have no clothes on; they did have the conviction of reality. "People in the Big Room" has this quality, and there are several more of relaxed goings on at some farm- house, e.g. "The Visitors." There is some structural sloppiness, but this is a minor problem compared with the one of the artist's direction. Two Polish artists now living here share their first Australian exhibitions at the Dominion Galleries. ' Turkish rugs from museum William Szumsky is a cheerful, eclectic, who with bright flat color and a cubist sort of style makes use of Picasso and Chasid' to produce something like John Craxton or like certain earlier Elaine Hax- tons. Gay little toy towns, figures floating unsurprised above them. Prices for these competent enough decorations, 35 to 110 guineas, Joseph Klimek Is more academic. Favoring lower tonalities, more sensuous- ly handled thick paint, he is at his best in the tra- ditional studio categories- a self-portrait, or an ex- cellent still life with fish -rather than Sydney land- scape, Prices 20 to 75 guineas for the paintings, and many drawings besides, The Art Gallery of N.S.W. has an exhibition of 25 Oriental rugs from the Victoria and Albert Museum, plus one enor- mous carpet from the Na- tional Gallery of Victoria. Made in Turkey, Persia and China from the 16th to the 19th century, and made bat only for the floor, but to ,Jrap around pillars, or for the table, or as sad- dlecloths, these are the decorative arta at their most controlled opulence. An unfamiliar experience, not to be missed.