Mixed-media works

Press, 19 July 1988, Page 27

Mixed-media works

“Approach.” Mixedmedia works by Grant R. Takle at the C.S.A. Galiery, until July 25. Reviewed by Pat Unger. In the Mair Gallery of the C.S.A. Grant Takle attemps the near impossible. He takes battered base metal and tries to convert it into something precious. Artists who have succeeded in such a task previously have been Ralph Hotere and Pauline Rhodes. Hotere transformed roofing iron into artefacts of Gothic elegance and Rhodes continues to enhance the rusty aurora and the ferric warmth of chosen metals.

Takle is not after such visually pleasing effects. He wants, in his art, to come to terms with a “traumatic experience” the “murder of a close friend.” He uses sheet and other metals in a rough and buckled condition and further mutilates them into “metaphors for death” — and for “energy.”

review

Nineteen mixed media wall works give testimony to the violence of life. In “Fetish” a cross appears to be dripping with great globules of fluid. A carving knife in “Channel” hangs with its counterbalance, a sharpening steel, by a crumped downpipe. “River Bank Murder” tries to convey the nature of a flow with the nature of uprightness. It has Christian crosses cut and gouged into the metal, as have many of the works. Roofing, cladding and guttering have their malleability put to the test in this art manipulation. Tinsnipped, shark-toothed edges add less than inviting imagery. And surfaces are animated further by brush-loads of paint which

may be bright, gesturemessy or waxy-soft.

Sometimes Takle’s tin takes on a clever illusion of fibre. “Weave” and “Lattice” become flax matting and in this setting they look almost delicate. The gallery echoes with the sharpness of distraction. Visual variety overwhelms the works. Shapes include large crosses, hearts and casements. There are even larger keyhole, guitar, maze and “X” formats. Colours range from lilac, the flaming fire of orange, yellow, and red to blackblue and silver. These recycled junk metal art works, their lustre long since gone have little cohesion. What they do have is a raw, shocked feeling. Takle’s inquiry into structural (and personal) tension, his interplay of form and plane and the deliberate use of colour and texture to unify these tough compositions have a way to go. This artist seems to have the energy for the journey.