Griffiths paintings

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33985, 28 October 1975, Page 13

Griffiths paintings

In the final exhibition under the old policy of representing younger artists, the Labyrinth Gallery is showing six recent paintings by Gary Griffiths. Henceforth the gallery will exhibit a wider range of works. Griffiths is represented by five rectilinear compositions' executed in acrylic paint upon clear PVC sheet, and one picture box of hardboard, aluminium, polyester gauze, and PVC in which softly hued and gently diffused lines are arranged in three-dimensional depth. The PVC sheet works are unsatisfactory examples of their kind: the viewer may i search in vain for visual or! intellectual stimulation occa-1 sioned by the arrangement of the elements. Unlike Sydow’s graphics now on show elsewhere, there is no underlying logic which determines the distribution of the forms and to which the intellect can re-

i.spond, no variety in com-i: flplexity and surface; only! characterless paint of in- : discriminate hue applied in ' a thoroughtly predictable t and unstimulating fashion. r Even his use of masking ii tape has let him down, with abundant evidence of “paint i l creep” under its edges — especially pronounced in i -; “Yun/Yab III”. This impreci- i i .sion is something .unacceptable in works whose merit I I is directly related to the:; • execution. : - ■ “Cosmos,” a picture-box h i-of soft lines, is a little more! /■interesting, but still farl< f

j short of a thorough resolu- ! tion of the possibilities its structure permits. Translucent lines stained on to; the polyester-gauze overlay I |a further set of lines on the' !rear plane. The viewer's movement! causes these lines to alter: their relationship one to the other, but when one has, explored the workings and possibilities of this implied focus shift, and that is soon accomplished, one looks in! vain for further visual en-. Irichment and stimulation. ; The exhibition will close lon November?. — T.L.R.W.