Page 54 - Studio International - January 1969

Steve Dwoskin has made five films. Alone was in a dressing gown, but removes it, in what is Robyn Denny's work is unmistakable. In all
the first. It was shot and edited in New York almost a parody, and moves erotically towards its permutations the quality of the colour
in 1964 but not finally completed with a the camera, her mouth close to the lens. remains constant; the various forms retain a
sound track until 1966. Chinese Checkers, Gradually, as in Chinese Checkers, the make-up common image; the colour is flat tone. The
Naissant and Soliloquy followed in 1967. At the on the predatory female is exaggerated so that tonal quality does not refer to solid colour
4th Experimental Film Festival at Knocke Le it is clearly threatening. The camera is not values; it is not a departure however, but the
Zoute in December 1967, the first of these passive in the relationship as the title Take Me same principle, applied to the scale of the
was screened outside the competition and the might indicate. As it progresses, the amount of spectrum. Colour is quality. The form is
other three competed. He received the Prix paint increases to suggest domination by the determined by the 'entry image'. The formal
Solvay, an award of 100,000 Belgium francs male, and cold cream and emulsion paint have construction follows in stages starting from the
(approximately 2,000 dollars) and this led been daubed on the female figure. lower edge of the picture; the lower centre of
directly to the sale of Chinese Checkers to Sud Dwoskin says that his films are an extension the picture therefore appears as the threshold,
West Deutsche Rundfunk T.V. for a further of his painting. They are always about women, through which the spectator enters. The entry-
£250. 'The money', he says, 'went to pay my examining 'the sensual aspect of things'. They image and tonal colouring are the immediate
debts.' Since the award he has made only Me are not intellectually considered works; they characteristics of Robyn Denny's work.
Myself and I but he hopes to have two more are `felt.' Film is another way of doing the His series Colour Box still keeps to the specific
ready for the opening of his exhibition at the same thing, the paintings are like frozen quality of tone in his colour. But the colour
REDMARK GALLERY on 15th January. frames.' In fact this is difficult to see. Soliloquy, values are no longer restricted to the range of
The first of these is experimental 'in the more for example, is a contrived joke in which a girl grey, green, blue and brown: the darker
traditional sense' and is called Awaken. talks of her lover as a psychoanalist or vice mixtures are replaced by clearer colours. In
Because the sound quality of most so-called versa. His paintings do not have the precision this series the colours of the objects are com-
Underground films is so poor, he sees Awaken of his films and whilst he considers colour to bined to form a circular composition; the
as an interplay of sound and images—an be one of the main elements in his studies of colour used for the entry image appears in the
attempt to utilize sound in a more related his relationships with women, all his films are next object as the basic colour. With a boldness
way. The other is more typical of the Dwo- in black and white. Primarily, he argues, this unknown until now, Denny introduces a
skin style—an 'unintentionally erotic' piece is because of money; it may also be that he felt brilliant orange, or the blue/yellow contrast.
about a girl trying to seduce a man in the ill-equipped to cope with colour on film. This does not mean that the principle that the
position of the camera. She begins, wrapped KEVIN GOUGH-YATES quality of colour precedes its physical value,
is abandoned; on the contrary, the further
Denny penetrates into the spectrum, the more
clearly the qualitative interpretation of the
colour emerges. The colour in this new work
cannot be ascertained immediately as 'red
colour', 'green colour', etc. The eye is too
preoccupied with the constitution of the tonal
light objectively to register the colour at once.
The reality of the surface pigments becomes
obvious only when the viewer realizes how
decidedly this colour resists arbitrary moods.
The formal changes/innovations in the series
Colour Box are more far-reaching than the
change in the size of colour. Above all, the
reduction of the vertical vectors, which Denny
has been pursuing for some time, has never
reached the point it has now in the present
work. The format and the forms appear to be
more relaxed than before even though they
more and more approach the square. The
vertical symetrical axis however remains un-
changed; it is even more accentuated by the
colour. In consequence of the emphasis on
symmetry the entry image comes more to the
foreground. Entry image and symmetry are
used to complement each other in Denny's
work : the tendency to draw the viewer into the
picture is compensated for by the hermetic
structure. In the series Colour Box the counter-
weight of the symmetry is of particular signifi-
cance as the entry image is emphasized here by
a new composition principle. The layers of
planes of clear acrylic allow the entry of the
view not to appear as a mere metaphor: the
eye wanders indeed through various stages into
the picture.
But not only is Denny's treatment of form
clarified and made more precise by the layer
principle; both characteristics of his colour
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