‘New Image’ art

Press, 25 August 1983, Page 6

‘New Image’ art

“New Image” paintings at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, until September 7. Reviewed by John Hurrell.

This “New Image” show is the first of three exhibitions organised by the Auckland City Art Gallery in a series entitled “Aspects of Recent New Zealand Art.” The seven painters represented are from the North Island, Richard Killeen probably being the best known, although Wong Sing Tai has been exhibiting in touring shows for longer. The distinguishing characteristics of the works are that they use mostly figurative images, as opposed to totally abstract paintings; that they often make art about other art works; and that they show an awareness of an international idiom, with a distinct irreverence towards the New Zealand landscape painting tradition. The title is unfortunate because it suggests affiliations with the present neoexpressionist “New Image” type of painting in fashion overseas. While they are “New Image” in that they are “post-modern,” and a reaction against the extreme reductionist tendencies of modern art apparent in the last 15 years, they are also essentially European and more seriously preoccupied with the repudiation of art history than these New Zealand works.

Very rarely do we see in Christchurch an exhibition as exuberant and rich in humour as this one. Many of the paintings rejoice in their own flippancy and espouse a rejection of any seriousness

or angst in art The tongue-in-cheek quality of some of these works is almost too much to absorb in one dose, much like a person at a party who persistently puns and tells jokes ad nauseam without pausing to let you catch your breath. One wonders whether some of these artists have any serious views.

Three of these painters have never had one-man shows in Christchurch, and so it is particularly exciting to be given the chance to look at the work of Wong Sing Tai, Denys Watkins, and Paul Hartifean in detail. Of the others, only Gavin Chilcott surprises, in that his works here are so much wittier and more inventive than those in his recent Brooke/Gifford exhibition. Killeen’s work in this show looks too sincere for the company. Wong Sing Tai’s works are a revelation, with their fastidiously painted space ship images on the underside of perspex. His small “Mondrian,” with a wobbly line where Mondrian would have painted a horizontally straight one, is stunning, so simple in its humour, yet still delightful on each new inspection.

This excellent exhibition makes us think about what is the difference between a “minor” and “major” painter, and how does one make “profound” painting. While some of these thematically linked individuals, such as Frizzell and Baloghy, become tiresome when seen in their own oneman shows, in the context of this group exhibition, their work looks superb. To get the catalogue alone is well worth the visit.