Artists explore line, texture

Press, 15 February 1989, Page 24

Artists explore line, texture

A combined exhibition of life drawings by Ron Currie and photographic landscapes by Tony Webster is on ■■ show at ,“The Gallery” Akaroa until February 26. This joint venture is Currie’s first show; Webster has exhibited previously in group shows with the South Canterbury Arts Society in 1987 and the Christchurch Artists Collective in 1988. Ron Currie was born in Roxborough in 1954 and studied art at Timaru College. He has been living at Chippenham Community for some years where his association with other

Christchurch artists involved him in a stimulating life-drawing group. He cut his teeth as an illustrator on political cartoons in the 1970 s and acknowledges that this genre, along with meticulous nineteenth-century engravings of machinery, have influenced his style — especially where hatching is used to convey the sculptural form of the figure. Currie’s chief concern, however, lies with the essence of line: “I try with speed of line to express and capture the dynamic potential of each figure. My best drawings, I think,

are rapid with a spare economic line — the human form fascinates me.”

Tony Webster was born in the Netherlands in 1950 and has lived in Christchurch since 1955. He

pursued an academic arts career until 1970, when he left Ham Art School after two years. He has recently started drawing, printmaking and painting. As a painter, surface qualities interest him and the photographs in the show are seen as textural studies or sketches which rework recent ideas and from which new work may evolve.

“Basically they are my holiday snaps,” says Webster. “I am training myself to look at things texturally which often involves taking a close-up view.