Group and two-man shows

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32450, 10 November 1970, Page 14

Group and two-man shows

Some new faces and many familiar ones will be seen in the annual Group show, which is to open this week-end in the C.S.A. gallery.

One of the new faces is that of Don Binney, the Auckland painter best known for his bird series. He will show some new work, painted in Christchurch, where he has been working for several weeks. Mr Binney is exhibiting as a guest of the Group, as are Stan Palmer (painter), Derek Mitchell (a Christchurch printmaker) and the two former Hodgkins Fellowship holders, Michael Smither and Ralph Hotere, who have been sharing a studio in Dunedin recently. Both Smithers and Hotere are by now well known in Christchurch, their work having appeared in several exhibitions. Several other Dunedin artists and several from the North Island will be featured in this year's show. Rosemary Johnston, now living in Dunedin, has sent some sculpture which has arrived at the C.S.A. gallery and is to be unpacked tomorrow. John Middleditch is also sending sculpture from Dunedin, and Dorothy Staub is sending weaving. More weaving is to be exhibited by Joan Calvert (Wellington) and Kay Twiss (Auckland). Auckland painters who will

be represented include Pat Hanly, winner of this year’s Manawatu Prize, and Colin McCahon, a regular Group exhibitor for many years. Most leading Christchurch artists will be represented, and there will also be paintings by Dorothy Waters, of Otane, Hawke’s Bay. She is a former member of the Group who is returning to the exhibition fold after an absence of several years. lan Hutson, who returned from Invercargill this year to take up a teaching post at Christchurch Boys’ High School, is another former Group expatriate who is showing this year. Three potters Michael Trumic, John Fuller and Graeme Storm—will exhibit, and there will be jewellery by Kobi Bosshard and Gunter Taemmler. Works for the show are due at the gallery tomorrow, and the unpacking will be done tomorrow and Thursday. After a private opening on Saturday, the show will be open to the public on Sunday. GRAPHIC SHOW Prints, drawing and paintings by Marilynn Webb and Vivian Lynn, two of New Zealand’s leading women printmakers, are to be on show next week in the first two-man show in Graphic gallery. Marilynn Webb will show 15 prints and five drawings, and Vivian Lynn eight etch-

ings, 25 colour relief prints, < and some paintings. i Marilynn Webb’s works J are linear in style, based on ’ New Zealand land forms and 1 cloud structures. < Vivian Lynn’s surface re- ’ lief prints are concerned with colour harmony and visual opulence. “I use a linoleum block,;' and it takes one to two ! hours to wipe up the block,” 1 ’ Marilyn Webb writes. “I use.’ hand-made paper, soaked for;' a week before printing. (I; think that I invented this ’ process). “I’m not sure, but I know/ that I started these linoleum ' etchings for maximum con- : trol of the image, and in a fit of purity and protest! against squashed lavatory * paper, ferns, found objects ’ and accidentals exhibited as ’ ■prints. I find the lino very 1 sympathetic, being soft and 1 porous—l can wipe up a f variety of line and control c the ink density. “The coastlines were drawn ° around Hokianga in North- * land—l spend quite a lot of 1 time in that special place.” ' Some of the prints show * bluffs from Central Otago ; drawings, and others show ' hills and clouds in North-J land. “I’m quite an ex- ‘ perienced hill and cloud . watcher,” she said. Marilyn J Webb was born in Auckland ! in 1937, educated Opotiki, ’ Bay of Plenty. She worked * in Spain in 1961-62, and in ! central Australia in 1964-65. ‘ She is now an adviser in art ! for the Auckland Education ’ Board. - She has exhibited with the J New Zealand Print Council, * and was the 1970 co-winner ' of the Te Awamutu festival 1 exhibition of prints. Her < overseas exhibitions are the i biennale of prints, Tokyo, and , second triennale of prints, . India. The exhibition of graphic art, arranged by the/ Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1 !

also included some of her work. She has works in the Auckland Art Gallery, the Hamilton Art Gallery, National Gallery, and private collections in New Zealand, Australia, England, Japan and Ireland. Vivian Lynn says she tries to bring out the unique I character of the colour print, as the method almost insists on a series of variations rather than editions of lone print. ' “Contributing to this is ithe fact that the printing i process here is part of the creative process, where as in fetching it is not so to the same degree. “The colour prints are made wet on wet, so if the image is too assertive then by offsetting, reprinting with transparent inks or reversing the plate the image can bei restrained without the original thought being I destroyed. “Using colour printing as-i a means to discover a par-' ticular image for painting meant that the emphasis was on pushing that particular print, as far as possible—sometimes to oblivion. Consequently, along the way many variations and deIcisions occur.” Bom in Wellington, Vivian Lynn studied at the Canterbury University School of Fine Arts. She was represented in New Zealand contemporary painting exhibitions at the Auckland City Art Gallery in 1963 and in 1968, and various other shows in New Zealand, and held a one-man exhibition at Christchurch in 1966. Her work was included in the New Zealand Print Council’s exhibition which went to Australia, the United States, Asia and Expo 70 this year. Public galleries in Dunedin, Christchurch, and Wellington own her works.