George Baloghy

Press, 14 March 1984, Page 26

George Baloghy

George Baloghy. Paintings at the Canterbury Society of Arts, until March 18. Reviewed by John Hurrell. The Auckland artist, George Baloghy, has 24 works in this exhibition. Although some are watercolours on paper and colour lithographs, most are acrylic and enamel on canvas or board. Baloghy’s works have given him the reputation for being a humourist in the New Zealand painting scene. His technique of combining images pinched from Old Master paintings and modern works with incongruous New Zealand references has won him much attention, but in this show he seems much broader in his aspirations, appearing to be seeking to be taken seriously as a painter, and not just a glorified cartoonist. The works in this exhibition are not as immediately comical as those in his last Christchurch show in the Brooke/Gifford Gallery several years ago. Six or seven

of these new works are straight depictions of petrol stations or buildings, with no sly twists added. He seems to be exploring the more traditional aspects of art making. Baloghy is obviously touchy about being called an insubstantial painter. His painting of himself flogging a dead horse, and the work showing a sign saying, “Warning, Painting may be shallow,” contains more truth than perhaps he realises. It is curious then that this exhibition is so unfocused. A wide range of subject matters is included, but with no cohesive theme. Of the "funnies,” the mock Brent Wong painting, with the large piece of architectural moulding held aloft in the sky by a crane, causes the most chuckles. Unfortunately Baloghy is too clumsy technically to attempt a Wong facsimile, and so misses the chance to cause the viewer to do a double take and to ponder the technical properties of

Wong’s work. These are in essence more the artist’s characteristic than the forms he depicts. Clearly Baloghy remains more akin to Bromhead than to Magritte. Baloghy’s methods and philosophy seem eccentri- .. cally rather than logically structured. His gas station 2 paintings are too akin to Ed ; Ruscha’s Los Angeles photographs to say anything in- "• teresting about New Zealand or painting. His Mondrian-like dia- J mond compositional format however, do give them un- ; expected visual impact. Baloghy’s work appears to be hampered by his clinging to painterly techniques, comparatively simple though his are. His ideas might well flourish when expressed through photographic methods such as Cibachrome prints, where he could sharpen the thrust of his views and perhaps get a wider audience, without the difficulties of an inappropriate and distracting technique.