A New Zealand artist aims to capture truth about light

Press, 28 July 1978, Page 5

A New Zealand artist aims to capture truth about light

By

LEONE STEWART

Home & People

Some people are going to find Bill Culbert’s work with light maddening: what is the man on about anyway? Others will begin by being puzzled, progress to fascination, and maybe revelation.

The work of this New Zealand-born artist cannot be categorised, and that is a large part of its charm, and eventually, its impact. His exhibition, which opened at the Brooke/ Gifford Gallery on Monday, seems bound to provoke healthy controversy and speculation. For a while it can have you fooled, a salutory lesson in how easy it is to miss the point, especially of simplicity. This is not an exhibition for those looking for a pretty image, and it is only distantly related to the light shows of the sixties.

For those who are willing to do a bit of exploring, it should become the talk .of the town.

Bill Culbert is this year’s Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury’s School of Fine Art, Ham. A native son who has achieved critical acclaim abroad, this is his first visit home for 20 years. In the past two months he has been working under intense pressure to produce current works to be shown in a touring exhibition with work he has brought from London.

One look at the opposing and relating forces of light and dark on homely pieces of corrugated iron, kerosene tins, roof ridging and it seems Bill Culbert has gone native again.

But he does not seem to think so; he merely uses whatever is available, illuminating everyday things in an extraordinary way. He gives, he says, his own “vision of life to inanimate objects.” In fact, a photograph of his studio in London looks like any old Kiwi workshop—light bulbs, bits of flex, roils of tape, more light bulbs, a vegetable grater. ... A vegetable grater? Bill Culbert can take the most commonplace

object, and with his illusions of light, create an artefact. The three rooms at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery contain his most recent works, and show the direction of his work since he gave up painting in the late 19605.

In the darkened room black boxes leaking light create illusions of another space. Naked light bulbs and fluorescent strips create shadows a n d reflections, making the intangible visible, in the sculpture room. And in between, Bill Culbert’s accomplished photo-

graphy, which deals in the effect of natural light and shadow in our environment. The photographs, like the best of his work, seem simplicity itself at first. In fact, they reveal themselves as a series of wonderful surprises. “The Press” photographer took to it instantly—forgetting to be blase —circling the room, murmuring in appreciative discovery.

Caroline Tisdall, writing in “The Guardian,” says Bill Culbert’s simplest statements seem to be the most profound, leaving more to the spectator’s imagination than any amount of ingenious mirror work and electric box lightwork. She would approve of the work he has done during this visit. The West Coast particularly seems to have yielded a rich source of material: driftwood from Reefton, his grandfather’s home, smooth, warmcoloured river stones, from Moonlight Creek — “what a lovely name, isn’t it?”

For those New Zealanders who feel that sleeping dogs are waking, that society is headed in an .onimously decadent direction it is interesting to hear Bill Culbert’s version.

The people and the place, he maintains, are still “simply smashing.” He just has some reservations about the politicians.

Twenty years on he feels he has been able to take up conversations with old friends where they left off. He is enjoying the commitment of the art scene at Canterbury', as much as the casual friendliness of the locals. “People don’t change,” he says. Has he? “No,” he said, with a grin. “I’m not English, though I live in London. I’m not French, though I’ve lived and worked in France, I am more New Zealand than anything else.” Certainly, there is a directness about him that seems very New Zealand, a

reticence about seeming opinionated that some see as part of the national character. But neither he, nor his English wife, Pip, believe in nationalism. He could, she believes, live and work anywhere. London just happens to be where he earns a living teaching part-time — which he finds immensely satisfying in itself — and where their three children

are growing up. Being back in New Zealand as a Canterbury fellow is both a humbling and satisfying experience. He seems almost surprised that the university should have kept up with’ his progress, and then invited him here “to do something about it.” And he is so

much happier being here to work than just to visit. “It’s the best way to communicate with people.” Much of the two and a half months of his fellowship has been spent worsing in Quentin MacFarlane’s studio on Clifton Terrace — “wonderful light at Sumner.” He believes the work h e has done here differs from his output abroad in only one real sense: productivity under pressure. Some of the work that is being shown here from a major exhibition of his work. Beyond the Light, 1976-77, at the Serpentine Gallery, in London, took up to five years to emerge. The planning and setting up of a proposed work can take months, and only then does the “real argument begin.” Then, sometimes, it does not work and he starts all over again. But he enjoys that, putting things together he does not really understand. His work evolves, his ideas are extended, and then he changes tack, “trying to find the truth about light.” It is obvious he would much rather work than talk about it, though he makes a good-natured effort to put in words the ideas he expresses with light. “I don’t know about all that.” he said cheerfully, pouring a beer for lunch. “Sounds like a lot of rot. People will make up their own minds about what they see here.”