Page 41 - Studio International - September 1968

surface where it cropped the grid Contradictorily, in at least two junction were not often posed so directly).
respects the grid also enhanced the illusion of depth. By being open, What made this stranger still was the necessarily fluctuating read-
and standing slender and luminous against a continuous broad ing of any element in the painting imposed by the size of the canvas
background, it suggested the deepest space yet in Walker's work; and combined with its shape and its customary setting. Walker's adoption
by being cut off at irregular points, asymmetrically in relation to the of the trapezoid format had been partly dictated by an interest in
canvas format, it implied a lateral continuity beyond the very canvas how far apart different shapes in a single painting could be placed.
boundaries whose limits it exposed. Essentially, however, the effect Placing them at opposite ends of a canvas seventeen feet wide created
of the grid was to heighten the sense (already implicit in the canvas unavoidable (but involving) difficulties of orientation for the spec-
format, but in danger of being lost because of its great size) of the tator. Moreover, concentration on the insistent identity of auto-
painting being a clearcut object with particular limits; and to force nomous widely-separated base-hugging shapes brought a rather
the painting's particular images forward assertively into a shallow intimidating consciousness of the space between them. The fact that
space, concentrating the theatre of action. The trapezoid paintings the theatre of action in each painting was below the natural line of
thus combined the extremes of huge expanse (both actually and by vision while much of this space was above, made its extraordinary
illusion) and activity in disconcertingly close focus. extent seem larger still; at times it appeared entirely to subvert the
Despite their greater impassivity as shapes, the particular images known shape of the painting, bulging and expanding, while at others
in front of the grid had a more direct and specific assertiveness than it gave the illusion of tipping forward top-heavily over and towards
those of 1965 and early 1966. Vital in this was the fact that they the spectator. These illusions coexisted with their contradiction— the
were tied down to the bottom edge of the painting and were often sense, springing from the picture's sloping sides and the presence of
well below the ordinary line of vision. Their abrupt intrusion at one assertive shapes at the front of its space but to either side, that the
end of a largely open field, contrasting with its homogeneity, made space between was streaming away in acute perspective.
particularly prominent the question of the separateness of substance The hanging of Walker's paintings usually deliberately enhances
of different parts of the painting. Their emphasized juncture with the these ambiguities. Always using canvases as wide as his studio will
canvas edge effectively ruptured the perception of the painted surface allow, he himself can have only relatively close views of the painting
as one of overall equality, so much a feature of concurrent large- in progress. Wishing an equally close view for the spectator, he
scale abstract painting (in which questions of substantiality and dis- welcomes a relatively restricted gallery installation. Thus time as