Chch artist asked to return

Press, 24 June 1978, Page 7

Chch artist asked to return

Bill Culbert, whose “Cubic Projections” has been described in London as one of the single most celebrated art objects of the 19605, has taken up a Canterbury visiting fellowship for three months at the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts, from which he graduated with honours in painting in 1956. ) A special selection of Culbert’s works has been brought to New Zealand with the help of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council for national exhibition. It is expected to be shown in Christchurch { next month. { Culbert first emerged as ' a painter of promise when i he exhibited with The i Group in Christchurch in ! 1956. He was awarded a ! National Art. Gallery trav- ) elling fellowship a year ) later and studied at the i Royal College of Art. from ! which he graduated A.R.C.A. with first-class ! honours in painting. He spent a year in ! France, was painter-in- { residence at. Nottingham . University, and then a ! senior lecturer in painting ! at the Nottingham College of Art. Since 1973 he has taught part-time at several British art schools, and is now lecturing at the Slade

School of Art, and at Reading University. Since 1961 he has held nine solo exhibitions, culminating last year in a tour of his “light works” by the British Arts Council. His work has been included in group exhibit tions in Britain, Europe and Canada,- and a collection of his photographs has been published. Culbert’s early painting was concerned with moving machines and the recording of visual sequences. His rise to prominence coincided with an increasing interest in the possibilities of working with light and he filially abandoned painting to develop his interest in artificial light forms as sculptural extensions of his work. The Lisson Gallery produced his well-known “Cubic Projections” in multiple form in 1968 and the work, much enlarged, was used in the Covent Garden production of Frederick Ashton’s ballet, “Lament of the Waves.” Culbert’s recent work shows the transformation of simple objects and light sources, where the shadow cast by either natural or artificial light is an important element.