ONE-MAN EXHIBITION

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32301, 20 May 1970, Page 18

ONE-MAN EXHIBITION

The Christchurch painter, Maurice Angelo, is exhibiting 14 paintings in a one-man exhibition in the Canterbury Society of Arts North Gallery. Angelo’s work was last exhibited in Christchurch in th, 1969 Group Show. Most of the paintings in the present exhibiton have been painted since that time and there is evidence of considerable development. The forms contained within most paintings have become more clearly defined, colour is used with more purpose and altogether a more individual style of painting is emerging.

The major weaknesses of some paintings lie in the area of composition: the curves in the foreground of “No. 1 Corrosion 1,” for example, seem t sag under the weight of blue above them: in No. 9 the sky, mountains, and foreground are formally composed so there seems to be no real reason for the dotted white centre line of the road to take off on an independent course of its own. “A Night and Day on Mt John” also runs into difficulties; the top half of the painting, possibly through a lack of colour relationship, fails to relate to the bottom half. The work could well have been more successful as two separate units. A heavy patch of green rej resetning a stand of trees in “Nor West Light 111” causes a breakdown of composition by failing to follow the hill form out of which they grow. Numbers 3,4, 5,6, 8, 11, 12 and 14 however- are successfully resolved with No. 8 (see picture) “Nor-west Light IV" moving into a surreal area of painting. The Mackenzie country is transformed into a fantasy land of cloudlike forms back-lit by a nor’west light. No. 5 “Nor-West Light 11” ant No. 14 “Hill Forms II” both dramatically combine sweeping roadways and land forms in a way that makes each part of the other. It is not easy to combine manmade and natural elements, but this Maurice Angelo has managed to do. The exhibition will remain open until June 3. E.T.M.