When words and images collide

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 24

When words and images collide

By

CHRISTOPHER MOORE

A flying alligator swoops across an elaborate wallpaper; disintegrating creatures of indeterminate species couple in neat ranks; an allegation made flesh surmounts a mathematical equation. Welcome to the art and imagination of Christchurch artist Barry Cleavin, whose latest exhibition opened at the Gingko Gallery on March 6. Etchings and aquatints, “A series of allegations,” feature in his new show, works which held words, and images through the skills of Barry Cleavin and lawyer/writer A. K. Grant.

In their hands, a simple legal phrase takes off on bizarre, wondrous flights of artistic and verbal fancy. “Words and images are constantly on a collison course and it’s something which continues to interest me,” Cleavin says. “Apart from the series of allegations, the exhibition contains several small preoccupations of mine.” Among his “preoccupations” is a suite of prints entitled “Destructions of Temples” commemorating acts of visual terrorism against familiar monuments of Western art: St Peter’s, Milan, St Paul’s and Reims Cathedral.

“The works in this exhibition are intended as provocations to viewers to investigate the collision course between word and image. It has been my intention to get the print back to its historical position concerning image, and content aside from boutique frippery. “If the way that the image presents itself has a high aesthetic quotient, so much the better. The pill of content may become much more palatable,” he says. Other prints in the new exhibition contain memories of childhood games, while a work on aluminium monofoil, “The Hungry Sheep Look Up” presents images of Nemesis. The exhibition is the first larger collection of prints Cleavin has shown in Christchurch since “Bitter Sweets” at the McDougall Gallery in 1983. “It is a side show with elements of savagery disguised and undisguised. To quote Jule Einhorn, the director of the Gingko Gallery: ‘a small pleasure park’,” he says. Born in Dunedin in 1939, Cleavin studied at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts and the Honolulu Academy of Arts. His work is

contained in private and public collections in New Zealand and overseas. He has participated in group exhibitions and held a number of solo shows. CLeavin’s work continues to arouse strong reactions but he remains one of New Zealand’s leading contemporary printmakers with a reputation for strong, visual surprises and an eye for making the expected totally unexpected. This year Cleavin will take sabbatical leave from the University of Canterbury for residency at the Canberra School of Art where he will work as visitor to the print workshop — a project designated for his own work and to exchange views and experiences with staff and students. Cleavin has also been invited to take part in three international exhibitions during 1989 — the ninth Norwegian International Print Triennale, the International “Small Graphic Forms” exhibition at Lodz, Poland, and the Bharat Bhavan Internatonal Biennale of Prints in India.

In June, he will mount “Now and Then” in Auckland’s Portfolio Gallery, a selection of work from two decades as a printmaker.