Works by Simon Ogden

Press, 13 June 1984, Page 28

Works by Simon Ogden

Works by Simon Ogden at the Canterbury Society of Arts until June 17. Reviewed by John Burrell. The English artist, Simon Ogden, is at present teaching painting at the Canterbury School of Fine Arts. This is his first show in Christchurch and he presents five three-dimensional constructions, two screenprints, and five collages in the upstairs mezzanine floor of the C.S.A. Ogden’s collages and screenprints show very much the influence of the European “cobra” group, especially that of the Dutch painter, Karel Appel. Made from torn pieces of garishly coloured paper to suggest facial shapes, these are exuberant works but highly eclectic. Two of the smaller and more abstract works have strong overtones of Matisse, and like the other collages, are not able to transcend the influences of a particular period of European art. They look cliched and studentish and out of context, having none of the shock value that this type of art generated when it was originally developed 30 years ago. The same problem applies to the much more interesting three-dimen-sional works. While plenty of people still get offended by Don Driver’s large assemblages made of objects taken from Taranaki rub-

bish tips, basically the principle has long been established that any material whatsoever bearing colour or texture can be made into a thing of beauty. For that reason, works preoccupied solely with the organisation of shape, texture, hue, and other visual qualities, as exemplified by the larger constructions in this show, can only look tamely decorative when compared with the complexities of meaning found in a lot of art that has been made overseas since the mid-60s. These works seem terribly naive because they do not go beyond the ethos of attractive mark-making so widely prevalent in New Zealand. Certainly the pieces of brightly coloured plastic brushes, wicketkeeping gear, bones, and charred wood look intriguing, but they give out nothing beyond being nice arrangements. No strategy is inherent in their making, no sense of tactics or engagement with the time or place they are exhibited in. In one work Ogden quotes from Tony Cragg, an artist who fixes pieces of plastic rubbish directly to the wall to make up huge maps of Britain, or flags and hammer and sickle signs. Odgen’s large works are all encased in perspex boxes and in contrast with Cragg’s work, are completely nonthreatening in meaning. They contain no possible metaphor and the boxes look sanitized and almost apologetic for their contents. Easy to dust, the pieces of debris in the cases look securely fixed and no cause of heart-ache for gallery conservators and possible investors. They also shrewdly unify spacially the often disparate three-dimen-sional element contained within them. This is a disappointing show. A clearly well-in-formed artist, such as Ogden, needs to take more time in carefully developing his ideas, so that a more pithy and articulated statement is made in his next exhibition.