Tracy Wilson solo exhibition

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 35

Tracy Wilson solo exhibition

Paintings, drawings and etchings by Tracy Wilson at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery until May 24. Reviewed by John Hurrell.

Tracy Wilson is a young painter who is presenting here her first solo exhibition since she completed a bachelor of fine arts degree at the University of Canterbury. Her work is Expressionist in style, and as such is a typical product of the Ham School of Fine Arts; very rarely do other approaches in painting emerge from that institute. Almost always, the paintings emphasise a brusherly type of mark-making. Understanding that explains the limitations of this

kind of exhibition. The works are based on images of running figures which have been organised into arrangements of vigorously brushed shapes and gestural slashing lines.

They have no conceptual appeal, for their meaning resides in the manipulation of the materials. The jumping or running figures function decoratively, not metaphorically or with any personal or political references. The surprises of the exhibitions are to be found in the prints. Their variety of tonal backgrounds and quality of line, plus the confidence in their positioning of shapes, makes them much more successful than the competent, but not overexciting. paintings and

drawings. The etchings, with their very restrained black and grey inks and occasional smears of oil paint, display no indecision or cluttered organisation.

Scraped and etched striations give a grafitti-like quality to these depictions of moving figures. While these marks look spontaneous, such printed or painted signs are just as mechanical and rehearsed as any other kind of mark.

Although gestural, their meaning is not transparently obvious, but instead, is a coded structure that is learned by the viewer. The understanding of “expressiveness” is transmitted and perceived through language. In some of the painted.

drawn and printed procedures shown in this exhibition, the mark as sign proclaims itself to be innocent, sincere and original. It affects to cause cathartic release in both artist and viewer.

While it is good that the Brooke Gifford has devoted the whole gallery to such a new artist, the small room with just prints would have been much more exciting.

Although the landscape and the Expressionist tradition seem to have a stranglehold on any new painting talent which surfaces in Canterbury, Wilson’s paintings, drawings and prints are well presented and show consistent attitudes throughout.