Expatriate sheds a new light on N.Z. art

Press, 29 July 1978, Page 21

Expatriate sheds a new light on N.Z. art

Bill Culbert, Light Sculptures and Photographs. Brooke/Gifford Gallery, until August 4. Reviewer: Michael Thomas.

The naked light bulb is the central element in Bill Culbert’s spectacular display of 18 sculptural pieces and photographs at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery.

Lit and unlit, real and reflected, the bulb is used ingeniously to create dramatic effects which appear impossible. An infinite number of images of light bulbs surrounded by a cube appear in one work to recede like a corridor into the wall. In another piece “Celeste,” a translucent box is covered with multiple projected images of the bulb which fall over the surfaces in a beautifully ordered sequence of changing angles. The way these effects are achieved is not apparent, and those who discover the mystery will be amazed at how such sophisticated results have

been created with such simple means.

Bill Culbert. who was born in Port Chalmers, is in Christchurch for a three-month visiting fellowship at the School of Fine Arts, at Ham. He studied painting at Ham in the late fifties before being awarded a fellowship to study at the Royal College of Art in London. He graduated with first class honours in painting in 1961, and has since held several exhibitions in Europe, where he is regarded as one of the leading artists working with light.

Seven key works, produced over the last eight years, are included in this exhibition, together with 10 recent pieces and a selection of photographs. The photographs provide a valuable insight into the imagery of Bill Culbert, and also a picture of the European context in which the earlier pieces were made. Since his arrival about six weeks ago, Mr Culbert has revisited his boyhood haunts, which have in-

spired the 10 New Zealand works in the show. Produced’ quickly, these have a rugged, brash, quality. They are visual, rather than meditative, and unlike the earlier pieces, each work does not seem to express the essence of a unique idea. They are somewhat repetetive —

corrugated iron and a single strip light being used several times to say what could have been expressed in one single piece. Culbert’s most profound works are the less spectacular pieces, in which the viewer has to use his imagination to provide possible explanations. The most powerful are the simplest, and quietest. “Reflection and Shadow,” in which a lit bulb against a black background casts a shadow from an unlit bulb on to a white background, and “Five Cubes to Black” use very limited means — and no tricks — to make a strong, resolved, statement about light and dark, or night and day. These works consist, of symbols for ideas which exist outside the objects themselves; and like the latest of the New Zealand pieces, “Greenstone,” they pose questions. The exhibition is one of the most important to be seen in Christchurch this year and is proof of the great contribution which an artist of the calibre of Bill Culbert can make to the city’s visual arts. The strong perceptual emphasis in his work is in contrast to much contemporary New Zealand art, and the exhibition which will soon tour the North Island, is sure to provoke much questioning and interest.