Art Or...?

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 May 1950, Page 4

Art Or...?

Sir, —Your criticism of my current exhibition was most unusual. It is as rare as it is fair for a critic to say in essence: I personally do not like this, but I feel that it may have worth.

I should like the following to be taken as complementary to your critique—not as opposition to it. Admittedly my work is ‘difficult’ for the general public, but I am at all times willing to talk about it. No artist should mind doing that if he brings something unusual. Is it hocus pocus? I regret to say that with some artists it is. Just as there are good and bad artists doing the more conventional work, so, too, are there good and. bad practitioners in the modern movement. And among the bad, again, there are the sincere bad, the unwitting bad “who know not what they do,” and the absolute charlatan ... a very rare bird indeed. I doubt whether he exists at all, for in art, at any rate where some tangible article is produced, it would be well nigh impossible for anyone to make a living by tweaking the public’s nose. My work is diverse and changing because my life has been varied and' full of. experience. Years ago I-con-structed hot air balloons twenty feet high, ‘and also built two man-carry-ing gliders. From this comes my love of birds and of the smooth modernity of aeroplane shapes. My experience in the use of symbols comes from making scientific diagrams, from a year’s work on the staff of the technical radio magazine and, In an army intelligence section, from the use of conventional signs for mapping and for showing our own and enemy troop dispositions. This experience has also been complemented by a study of decorative pattern and of symbols employed by primitive peoples. The whole of one’s life and experience can become integrated with one’s art. But few artists use themselves completely: most are content to exploit one corner, and they are more readily understood.—l am, etc., GORDON McAUSLAN.