Artists’ Collective

Press, 27 July 1989, Page 14

Artists’ Collective

“4 x 2.” Second show by Anneke De Leur, Peter Gilmore, Jools Goodger, Robyn Kilty, Bele Melzer, Gina Papageorge, Audrey Parker and Julia Thompson at the La Quete Gallery until July 29. Reviewed by Pat Unger.

The Christchurch Artists’ Collective exhibition at the La Quete rates some attention for the enthusiasm of its artists, but for little else.

Having a feeling for the human figure, for landscape (whether seen as decorative or simple shapes) and for the visual excitement of colour, is but the first step along the way to realising successful art making. Many of the works show varying degrees of aesthetic immaturity. The two exceptions are Audrey Parker’s colour explorations of yellow, blue, orange, and purple, and Robyn Kilty’s “Soft

Cell/Sell.” Concerned with that sensitive area defined as “the difference between the sexes” (often “dismissed as bad art” by European “patriarchal art values”) Kilty’s construction is a provocative and satisfying work. It occupies several cubic metres of space, bounded at the top by a white grid system, from which hang hundreds of streamers on fine nylon threads. They are suspended over woollen strings, originally used to tie the folded streamers to the grid during construction, transport, etc., and now lie, in tidy casualness, on the floor like once useful, now spent, matter.

These cellophane and tissue streamers range from blood red in the middle to a barely living pink at the edges. They waver and tremble about with every movement and

invite the viewer to move inside to enjoy better the softness, the impressionability and dependence of women as reflected in the logic of this grid system. Audrey Parker’s four works contrast the muted deviation of a colour with a purer square of that colour, centred within each work. They highlight aspects of saturation and tonality while also underlying simple principles of compositional unity. A couple of Anneke De Leur’s photographs are interesting and Peter Gilmore’s prints of frigates are a ciy from the heart. Their cut-out shape is sprayed in silver on to clear plastic bags. Printed images of the Christ figure and other visual heroics emphasise, that,

in his opinion, “$2,000,000,000 for unnecessary frigates” is wrong when contrasted with high unemployment and reduced social services.