Water-colour contrast

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34099, 11 March 1976, Page 19

Water-colour contrast

The Brooke/GilToi'd Gallery’s contribution to this year’s Arts I'estival is two simultaneous! exhibitions featuring water-colours by Olivia Spencer-Bower, and felt banners by Gretchen Albrecht, of Auckland. Both shows will close on: March 19. The Spencer-Bower show, subtitled “Beside the River 1936-1976,” is something of' a retrospective collection with the greatest number, recent works. Interestingly, there is a preponderance of paintings falling within two chief categories — one a broad panoramic vista seen from an elevated position! with a river sweeping in an “S” curve into the distance, the other a bank with trees,, seen across the river running the width of the im-> mediate foreground. The earliest works show! Spencer-Bower concerned to lay paint across the entire' page with a firm concentration upon form and tone.; Unfortunately there is nothing to show her development between 1938 and 1950. nor

is there anything from 1950 j i to 1973. . But in one 1938 work, the; : 1950 pieces (with the exIception of one), and the re-; cent materia! we observe her steadily moving away from the earlier technique to-! wards a more abbreviated manner in which the white paper plays a much greater' role. i; The last works demon-; i strate her use of a contrapuntal brush stroke ? swinging its way across the I bare page in an alternating r play of movement and pause: perhaps at its most effective in “Trees and ■ Cliff” (No. 28) What is extraordinary though is to witness how little her style! ! has evolved in a quarter when we compare, for example. “Across the |River” 1950 (No. 13) with ' “The Sound of the River” b 1976 (No. 18). .| Their could be perhaps no greater contrast than that : afforded us by the two exhi- ,! bitions. Spencer-Bower’s .: water-colours, executed in a .1 liquid blond tonality and without ever having abandoned the motif, are lyric, works. So. too. are Gretchen Al l brecht’s large, fluid, moving

| felt forms, hut it is a lyric ; ism of an entirely different ; nature. The felt presents a perfectly uniform saturated colour of an even, characterful ; surface. Scissors replace the I brush and Albrecht exploits nicelv the firm incisive unflinching nature of the scisIsor cut. In so doing the Matisse j cut coloured-paper collages | spring to mind. Scale is important for these works, for what might otherwise be an intriguing piece of needlework in miniature becomes here an expansive spacehungry monumental composition. She translates the flowing transparent forms of her painted works successfully into this other medium with its unique demands, retaining the pleasing distribution of masses and tones, and | contrasting movements and emphasis. Significantly those two pieces. "Building Tools” and. especially. “Flying Carpet.” which most nearly approach her painting, are the most i exciting, both in terms of I tonal and colour distribution and in composition. —I. L. Rodney Wilson.