TWO ARTISTS SHOW THEIR PAINTINGS

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32860, 8 March 1972, Page 4

TWO ARTISTS SHOW THEIR PAINTINGS

A combined exhibition of paintings by Elizabeth Hancock and Brian Holmewood is being displayed in the mezzanine gallery of the Canterbury Society of Arts building. Both are studying for honours diplomas at the University of Canterbury School of Art, having completed their diplomas in painting last year. Elizabeth Hancock exhibits 18 paintings, many with a figure as the central theme. Her colour in a series of small nudes, Nos 1 to 5, is vaguely fauvist but becomes more subdued with less tonal contrast in her larger paintings. The bigger works, with or without reference to the female nude, are more

but also more J laboured, becoming a jig-saw of interlocking but not clearly meaningful shapes. Brian Holmewood exhibits ' one figure painting executed . in broad brush strokes, a r painterly style that carries : over to his other paintings. i These are abstract works rely- - ing for their effect on the 1 contrasting and harmonious relationships of colour com- ; bined with accidental splashes iof paint and caligraphic swirls. In both cases it is difficult i to view the works exhibited i as being of a mature per- ! sonal style; rather they are ■ essays in established convenr tions of painting. The exhibition will close on i March 17.—G.T.M.