‘Drawing Towards Painting ’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32119, 15 October 1969, Page 16

‘Drawing Towards Painting ’

An exhibition entitled “Drawing Towards Painting” has been assembled by Mr Don Peebles, a lecturer at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, in the Canterbury Society of Arts downstairs gallery. The exhibition consists mainly of drawings but includes a small number of paintings from each of the six participants. Those people who are familiar with the work of the Wellington painter, Melvin Day, prior to his leaving New Zealand to study in Europe will find little relationship between the cubist style he employed in those days and the work he is now developing. In a manifesto accompanying his work he explains his involvement with Renaissance theories and in particular the paintings of the 15th century Florentine, Paolo Uccello. Uccello used perspective superbly in combination with a poetic interpretation of real-

ity. Day uses heavy areas of texture and stencilled letters on a background of thinly glazed areas of browns and greys in his paintings. The connection with Uccello is no doubt real to the artist but it fails to manifest it-

self clearly in his paintings. John Drawbridge, also of Wellington, shows a large selection of drawings and two paintings. The paintings, titled “Mainly Blue” and “All Red” are intensely coloured but the repeated small, square brush strokes become monotonous.

Drawbridge’s drawings, however, exist in their own right, his medium being used with considerable confidence to explore a wide field of compositional possibilities and figure studies in a precise graphic style. Ted Francis is an English painter recently appointed to the staff of the University of Canterbury School of Art. He exhibits four paintings, one a shaped canvas, and all painted in acrylic in the hardedge manner. Francis relies on colour rather than shape or symbol for impact This is the sort of painting that must strike a

chord on the optic nerves or it becomes just another area of colour. To this extent Francis achieves more strength in his colour sketches than in his finished works.

Ralph Hotere’s “Black Paintings” are familiar to Christchurch gallery-goers, and the three he exhibits here

continue to produce refinements and variations on this theme.

Most surprising are his very expressive life drawings, which, in his own words, confound the critics who think he is minimalist.

Richard Lovell-Smith, a lecturer at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, reveals a profusion of drawing styles. Two drawings and a painting deal with Ce-zanne-type bathers and are uncharacteristic of the rest

The figures appear like statues uncomfortably frozen in their various poses. Among his other drawings are several straight-forward life studies that are fleshy, witty and authoritatively drawn. John Perry, from Auckland, is the youngest exhibitor. He displays drawings that are directly related to his relief paintings which, with their aluminium-painted raised surfaces and orange background, have a functonal quality about them. As an exhibition this is an interesting experiment which should assist the layman in understanding , the processes that go into making a painting. The exhibition will remain open until October 25. —G.T.M.