Page 52 - Studio International - October 1967

Survey '67—Abstract Painters and abstract forms to the point at which they for the painter. By associating so closely with this
Camden Arts Centre become meaningful in terms of the painter's form and these colours, by committing himself to
22 September-22 October accumulated experience of them and of the way them, he has made them an extension of his own
they work. Many of the exhibitors in Survey '67 thought and feeling. Each painting is the record of
Peter Carey, the director of the Camden Arts appear (understandably in the circumstances) to certain decisions taken in known circumstances.
Centre, is to be much commended for attempting have been too impatient for the maturing of either Works due to be exhibited by Margot Perryman,
to fill in one of the gaps in the exhibiting facilities of process, or too uncertain to expose the process itself. Jennifer Durrant, Sarah Kent and Alan Green
London. His conception of the obligations of I would make an exception here of the work of were unfortunately not available for viewing at
organizations such as his is enlightened and deeply Brian Fielding in which a dominant motif, a the time of going to press. The other exhibitors are
felt, and it is in part to realize this conception that triangle of varying size on a one-colour field modi- Basil Beattie, Michael Cutts, Peter Cartwright,
annual surveys of work by young artists are fied by 'framing' in different colours, serves as the Peter Joseph, David Saunders, John Croft, Keith
presented at the Centre. Exhibitions like the proving-ground for a variety of meditative ideas Richardson Jones, Edwina Leapman, and David
Young Contemporaries and the New Generation have and emotions. These paintings are successful Willetts. Justin Knowles is exhibiting as a 'guest
become too much associated with the very real because the medium itself has become meaningful of honour'.
rewards and awards which they offer. It is hard to
judge with dispassion the works shown in exhibi-
tions such as these once they have received, like
Left Keith Richardson Jones
vegetables at a country fair, the judges' red or blue
Double beam
rosettes. There are very few opportunities for
procion dye and acrylic, 45 x 68 in.
young painters who are not yet established to
exhibit their work in London in circumstances
which will encourage people to look at it for what
it is rather than for what the panel thinks it is
worth in a relative sense. The purpose of Survey '67
is to show the work of young abstract painters
whose primary interests are in form and colour,
most of whom have not so far held one-man
exhibitions in West End galleries.
The latter qualification was forced on Mr Carey
when several more established artists who had
Below David Willets Number 3 1965
been expected to exhibit and whose participation
oil on board, 60 x 60 in.
would have given more backbone and more variety
to the survey, withdrew or were withdrawn by their
galleries. The results have been unfortunate. The
exhibition appears to illustrate a movement which
on this showing has very little achievement to
support its ideals, and indeed I question whether
post-painterly abstraction, the predominant cate-
gory here, is a style truly representative of the
generation to which most of these exhibitors belong.
What the exhibition does reveal above all are the
problems now facing young painters. There are
great pressures on them to seem to have arrived
before they have fairly begun. There are paintings
in this exhibition of a size (the largest work shown
is 32 ft long) and a degree of abstraction that would
seem to indicate great assurance and great matur-
ity. The actual content of these paintings, in terms
of experience absorbed and experiences trans-
mitted, rarely justifies the expectations thus
aroused, with results that do far less than justice to
the abilities of the painters or to the aims of the
exhibition. If there were more exhibitions of the Above left Peter Cartwright Untitled
kind which I feel Mr Carey intended this to be, 1967
there would be more opportunity for painters to oil on canvas, 56 x 57 in.
show work that could be seen as part of a develop-
ment, and as part of a search for style or image.
One is conscious here rather of the failure to find
—to find, moreover, what in many cases has al-
ready been uncovered by others.
The scale and simplification have been developed
in the majority of these paintings beyond the scope
of the image or idea which originally prompted
them. Abstract painting has tended to develop in
one of two ways; either through the gradual re-
duction of a figurative image to the point at which
it is abstract and self-sustaining; or through the
obsessive employment of a limited range of colours
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