Page 39 - Studio International - February 1965

Philip Sutton

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aggressive sun, what impressed Sutton most was not the filled-in, nervously complex paintings of previous years.
exotic colour but the lushness, the fertility and beauty of With the stimulation of sun and light the colour sense,
nature. 'You have a sense of growth, of fertility, of sex. in fact, had become more controlled. With the breaking
You feel it pushing through your feet and legs. In Fiji up of the colour areas, the isolation of forms and the
it is a sort of green coloured sex. The plants with their areas of untreated, or plain white, canvas, reminders of
overpowering colours somehow only make the green Matisse-ever a deep influence-have become more
greener; the sea and the sky seem to become mere powerfully present. The large monochrome studies were
reflections of the land.' When I remarked that it was more surprising. 'The tropics are like that,' he explained.
curious he had not painted a single Fijian he said, 'I 'You become more aware of black and white, you see
was completely taken with the landscape although the shape of things and especially the shadows.'
I went out with the intention of painting the people.· Coming back to what he called the 'key picture' I
Pointing to one of the medium-sized oils, a view from remarked on the greater abstraction of the landscape in
the house down to the harbour, he described it as 'the this and other paintings. They reminded me of de Stael's
key picture.' Painted in strong greens and reds, with a disposition of formalized areas. Others, more fluid and
pale blue sea and a richly varied sky, it included two spontaneous, reflect Sutton's admiration of some of the
large areas, either side of the lower-centre, which had German Expressionists, Schmidt-Rotluff, for instance.
been left unpainted. I recognized it from a crayon sketch These, in my view, are among his finest Fijian paintings,
on a letter dated 5 May, 1 964-'The sketch is from a extending the superb handling of colour and form of
painting I have just finished,' he wrote. When I asked the Battersea nudes, shimmering with light, seductive
why 'key,' he said, 'Leaving the white shapes as part of and mysterious. Others, while sensitive and satisfying
the pattern-making reflected a new sense of relaxation. topographical records, miss this quality of timelessness.
To me that was very exciting.' I began to recognize What next? I asked. 'If you can go right round the
this new element in his work, in contrast to the dense, world you can go anywhere ... .' he replied. ■
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