‘Christmas Exhibition’

Press, 20 December 1986, Page 40

‘Christmas Exhibition’

“Christmas Exhibition 1986” at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery, until December 24. Reviewed by Pat Unger. This year, the Brooke/ Gifford’s Christmas Exhibition caters for whatever is your fancy. With 31 works by 15 artists (12 men and three women) at an average price of $1485, you can choose from the conventional to the kinky, from the bizarre to the brutal and from the tasteful to the tacky. Richard Killeen’s three works, on moulin du gue, are typically drawn images juxtaposed casually in random design. They refer to the primary industry and other tangentials. Gordon Walters’ geometric designs in grey, brown, black, white and blue are impeccable, if not dynamic and Gretchen Albrecht’s watercolours on paper are predictable. “Studies for Mysteries / Correspondences” uses free brush strokes to good advantage within the half-circle format whereas “In the Garden Fitzroy” struggles to

overcome this arbitrary ploy, which is fast becoming a problem in perseveration.

Don Peebles, now far from his constructivist and formalist position, exhibits two off-stretcher works that are quite sensual. Free floating, like stingrays gliding over the walls, they bring paint, mark, colour and canvas together in a visual treat. Neil Dawson’s “Point Taken” plays with tension of line, illusion of mass and reflection of shape with his usual competent handling of material and skill of visual manipulation.

Two works, one a monoprint and crayon, the other a watercolour, by James Ross are simple statements of a “neverland” of undefined dimension, while Euan McLeod appears to have slid into the oily excesses of New German Expressionism. “Chicken” is a painterly mass of mark in a nightmarish ground while “Interior and Legs” is a mess of paint smeared on paper for some more obscure design impulse.

Christina Conrad’s banana-faced gentlemen in “The Last Act” do a death-shuffle in a funeral parlour, their rubber hands floating about in a parody of entertainment. Bill Hammond’s small works also fascinate with their highly esoteric postBorchery.

W. A. Sutton lures his water-colours to stain and precipitate in a natural order of landscape and “Mt Cook Mackenzie Country” by Olivia Spen-cer-Bower is all about freedom in the high country. Ralph Hotere’s “Poem in Black” cleverly hides in obscurity, and Michael Smither’s drawings are figurative, linear and positive.

Tony Fomison, in lithograph, makes a figurative blast at racism, and Mark Whyte completes the picture with two sculptures destined for eternity. Suspension of mass and classical form in marble make a suitable comment on the durability of the artistic impulse, so well expressed in this exhibition.