‘Recent Paintings’

Press, 22 June 1989, Page 19

‘Recent Paintings’

“Recent Paintings,” by Simon Ogden at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery until June 30. Reviewed by Pat Unger.

Bold colours and basic shapes are used by Simon Ogden in his latest exhibition at the Brooke/Gifford Gallery to articulate thoughts and ideas of radiant colour in abstract form.

Moving away from his wall-hung threedimensional constructs to a more theoretical constructivist approach, Ogden paints a shrewd game of weights and measures. His canvases are not an

introduction to metaphysical or emotional states, but to the dynamics of constructing a picture out of colour, and form purified of meaning. They become the parts that make up the visual syntax of Ogden’s picture plays.

On flat, immaculate surfaces exuberant, artificially bright and undetailed colours pressurise hardedged and deliberate circles, triangles and rectangles (some with quirky little shifts in regularity and direction) into solidly-felt unity. A cross painted with triangles and rectangles

(with the odd non-parallel edge) follows no logic but its own. It creates a disconcerting but positive tension.

“Star Gazer” is an exercise in frozen syncopation; “The Conversation” diagrammatically follows ex clamations stated in a field of saturated green, and “Dawns” yellow is strengthened by colour harmonies and very reasonable block supports. In many of the works, Ogden controls the energy he creates by harnessing the pulsation of colour to the demands of structured order with authority.