Andre Brooke Shows Paintings From Tahiti

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30156, 13 June 1963, Page 15

Andre Brooke Shows Paintings From Tahiti

Andre Brooke, who has an exhibition of recent oil paintings at the Durham street art gallery, is one of the most prolific of Christchurch

painters. This is his second

one-man show in Christchurch in a year and in that period he has also had an exhibition in Papeete during a sojourn in Tahiti.

Many of the paintings in this exhibition were in fact painted in Tahiti and this is apparent not only overtly in titles and subject matter but. ir, some cases, in colour of greater intensity than we have seen from Mr Brooke before.

In some of these Tahitian paintings Mr Brooke moves outside his habitual dark browns and greyish greens and blues to use warm yellow-greens, brilliant peacock blues and warm light browns.

Stylistically. Mr Brooke's paintings follow two main directions One is a sort of lyrical cubism in which the forms float and nudge each

other gently. The other shows a Soulages-like concern for light glinting through dark swathes, and again the forms seem to float in a smoky atmosphere. In its sympathies and stylistic origins. Mr Brooke’s painting is basically French and rt has an intimate, domestic quality that finds its clearest and most fullyconsidered expression when he treats still-life subjects

In still lifes he consistently achieves the greatest strength and unity of composition. Some of the still lifes. such as No. 4. with its finelypoised. floating forms, and Nos. 1 and 12. with their free line. embody the best qualities of Mr Brooke's work. In some of the purely abstract or landscape-based works, on the other hand, the composition is often weak and lacking in substance The exhibition, which is hung with notable spaciousness and taste, will remain open until Sunday Prices range from 15 to 25gns. —J.N.K.