Chch painter success in Aust.

Press, 29 August 1984, Page 18

Chch painter success in Aust.

The Australian art buying public is fickle and fashion conscious. It is the name that counts, and, of course, the name that makes a painting a good investment. A “non” or “not yet” fasionable painter is lucky to sell especially if, like Euan Macleod, he or she comes from not-so-trendy New Zealand. “I’m not fashiopable, but at least that means if someone buys one of my paintings they must really like it,” says Mr Macleod. “If you’re a fashionable artist people will go to your show and virtually buy with their sunglasses still on.”

Euan Mcleod has talent, but he has also been lucky. Soon after arriving in Sydney four years ago he was "taken under the wing” of

an influential gallery owner, Frank Watters. When the Christchurchborn, 27-year-old’s latest show opened at Watters Gallery last month, several paintings were sold in advance, and to the gallery owner.

Before the opening, Mr Macleod mused that perhaps New Zealand art buyers were more honest. “In Australia if people don’t like or understand something they’ll give it the benefit of the doubt, especially if they thin they’re meant to like it. In New Zealand they will just reject it.” His next exhibition, at the Brooke-Gifford Gallery in Christchurch in early 1985, will presumably test that honesty. Inside the gallery, the impact of the Macleod works was overwhelming, partly because of their sheer size. The artist prefers to make his dark and forboding figures life-size on 3m by 2m canvasses, although this poses storage problems in his small home in the inner-city suburb of Glebe. He admits he tends to protray less attractive emotions like anger and distress. His paitnings are left deliberately ambiguous so. people can make up their own minds about them. As well as the giant canvasses selling up to SAIOOO, the Sydney exhibition included a series of grey-hued male nudes. Mr Macleod finds it difficult to describe or classify his painting style. But he likes a review by

the Wellington critic, Elva Bett, which appeared earlier this year after an exhibition in Bowen Galleries.

This review described his paintings as having a “gestural expressiveness which carries overtones of abstract expressionism. “The various overlays and dribbled paint told of the spontaneous pushing and pulling that had been necessary for fuller statement as wet paint was actioned into getting what the painter expected of it and what he

wanted to say about the subject.” Said Mr Macleod: “I couldn’t have described them better myself.” He is not making a living by painting yet in some ways is glad. A day job as a display preparator at the Australian Museum means he has not had to compromise his art to ensure he sells. “If I was relying on painting to survive I could be in a dilemma,” he says. ‘lt would be tempting to paint the sort of paintings I knew

would sell, rather than the ones I really wanted to.” Nevertheless, he is hoping to be able to reduce his waged working hours soon. Painting is at present squeezed in after work and at week-ends. Educated at Cashmere High School, Euan Macleod trained as a graphic artist and worked in the art department of “The Press” before deciding he was more inclined towards fine rather than commercial art and moving to art school. — Shona Martyn.