Two printmakers show work

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32777, 30 November 1971, Page 16

Two printmakers show work

Marilyn Webb is showing ten lino etchings and Stanley Palmer seven bamboo engravings in a combined exhibition at the Graphic Gallery, 152 England Street. Both printmakers are from Auckland and are members of the New Zealand Print Council. They have also, represented New Zealand in international print exhibitions in New Delhi, Llubljana and Tokyo. There has been no appreciable stylistic change in Marilyn Webb’s work since she last exhibited in Christchurch. She combines areas of cloud and water, printed in heavy reliefs, with landforms etched in lino. It runs through a narrow range of tone to a dark outline that is used economically to define the overlapping forms of the land. It may be that she intends the content of her work

merely as a prop for the process but the technique, having been well and truly mastered, as it has, it would be a shame to go on indefinitely repeating the same formula. Stanley Palmer’s bamboo engravings are by far the most interesting examples of his work to be seen in Christchurch so far.

Printed mostly in two or three colours, there is about his prints an undisguised passion for the landscape that includes romanticised themes of pohutukawa trees, water tumbling over rocks, rain and coastline. His drawing is free but controlled, with the drama of nature built up tonally and colouristically into prints that are technically rich; his is a poetic rather than a formal vision.

The exhibition will remain open until December 12. —G.T.M.