Anderson’s ‘Cut Images’

Press, 14 March 1985, Page 23

Anderson’s ‘Cut Images’

“Cut Images.” Prints and drawings by Kathy Anderson at the Gingko until March 28. Reviewed by John Hurrell. Twenty-four works, mainly linocuts, are presented by Kathy Anderson in the Gingko Gallery. The title of the exhibition is a witty one, referring both to the cutting of lino of wood blocks to make the images, and to the depicted images themselves, which are usually trimmed trees or hedges, or hewn, stone monuments. The exhibition itself is uneven, with some strong multi-coloured prints interspersed with some weak works, marred by poor drawing and clumsy registering. However, with that said, it must also be noted that the good works are of sufficient excellence to make this exhibition especially interesting. There is a lot of variety in this show and yet the exhibition does not seem fragmented. “Cut shapes” is the closest Anderson gets to a kind of semi-cubist abstraction. Coned trees and box shaped hedges are piled up over each other in a loose arrangement of suspended forms and dense colour. "Landscape with Green Frog” uses a tilted landscape and distorted perspective to force the eye to rush through trees towards the central horizon. It conveys a nightmarish sense of panic. “Circle and Standing

Stones” successfully plays off colour against black and white, depicting man’s predilection for making ordered arrangements, out of stone as well as from vegetation. The way plants and rocks have been altered for decorative or religious purposes (as in the case of Stonehenge) appears to be of some interest to Anderson. Three works featuring circles of stones used fine lined ink drawings on paper

which has been embossed by linocut techniques to suggest other rocks lying under the ground. An interest in kitset garden ornaments is also apparent. Several prints depict concrete or china birds in gardens, perhaps serving a parallel to her own art works inside people’s houses. Occasionally her prints show human figures, usually upside down; and of the

twee acrobatic variety found in so many popular prints. Her best works, though, seem to examine those impulses which lead humankind to attempt to control and order nature for the purposes of contemplation. Ultimately these prints seem self-referential, art that is looking at the principles behind its own creation, and wondering why.