EUROPEAN ARTIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27369, 20 April 1950, Page 5

EUROPEAN ARTIST

Exhibition Of Paintings The “ one-man show ” of paintings by R. Gopas gives the Otagopublic its first opportunity of examining the work of an artist who will undoubtedly become an injportant figure in art circles in the community. The impress of the years spent in the south of Europe is indelibly stamped on his work, and in this exhibition it is the group of Tyrolean scenes that immediately takes the attention. “A Forest” and “ Sunset Behind Rain ” are but two of the pictures which reflect a polished technique and an imaginative use of colour. Like many an accomplished artist before him, however, Gopas finds the raw landscape and the different atmosphere of New Zealand an intractable combination, a problem to be solved only when a completely new appreciation of altered values of light is cultivated. His views of the city present a nostalgically Mediterranean Dunedin. Nevertheless, he is seeking boldly—which is the only way—and with penetrating power, to master the challenge. The stark landscape of Central Otago prompts him to vivid impressionism which indicates his sensitivity to the mood of that frequently forbidding terrain and in an evening scene at Pahiatua he has captured a boisterous and typically New Zealand ’scape dominated by oppressively low lighting. His ability as a draughtsman needs no other advertisement than the portraits he shows, the tender “ Meditation ” being one in particular that illustrates his skilful use of water colour. The exhibition is being, held in the premises of Kendal Nisbet, in the Octagon. E. A. A.