Works by Nigel Wilson

Press, 2 November 1984, Page 21

Works by Nigel Wilson

Paintings by Nigel Wilson, at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery, until November 9. Re-, viewed by John Hurrellln our local dealer galleries, while new printmakers seem to be regularly exhibiting, very few young painters continue to • show work after they have graduated, and sculpture in Christchurch seems destined to extinction.

Nigel Wilson, a recent product of the Canterbury School of Fine Arts, is presenting this his debut exhibition of paintings. The nine works are made with oil paint on compound bedding that has been used to adhere hessian to shaped pieces of thick cardboard. These heavy-looking angular abstract paintings look like flat geometrical parcels of folded card and are reminiscent of tangrams. The works vary in their visual concerns. Some create tensions through the taut lines of their interlocking edges, with the triangular planes advancing or receding according to the tones and hues used. Others are less interested in spatial illusion and use patches of drybrushed colour, with the cream undercoat peeking through from underneath. They emphasise the texture of the hessian.

Mr Wilson’s best paintings use the fluid properties of paint, creating mottled glazes of colour with sheens which range from matt to gloss. The successful paintings have vertical dribbles of thin paint which set up tensions with the diagonal edges of the staped cardboard.

Over-all, however, this show is too uneven to make an impact The artist seems undecided in how to use the paint so that the threedimensionality of the support is taken advantage of. Some of the decisions relating to colour, paint application and shape seem arbiT

trary, with the craftsmanship inconsistent. Yet while the exhibition contains four or five duds, the better works indicate that Mr wil-

son is very capable of producing fine paintings. Like the exhibition by Martin Whitworth at the CSA. earlier this year, this show

is too casual and disparate but with the artist gaining experience and resolving, these probems, good results should appear.