Page 44 - Studio International - March 1973

discerned at a single confrontation. Similarly, this was a reaction against the very active optical
although Denny's paintings had become Hard effects of the previous group. Certainly it has the
Edge he continued for some years to work the effect of making the viewer search the painting.
picture out on the canvas and to let the traces of It becomes a void without being an abyss — a
the process remain visible and decipherable in space which is indeterminate (despite the regular
the finished work. forms) but limited to the reach. The element
The pictures of 1961 (exhibited at the Molton of maze or game mentioned in the description of
Gallery) display a stock of divergent ideas many `Place' is interiorized, either in the form of lines
of which were developed in later pictures : moving symmetrically about the surface
Wardrop I, a near symmetry (above a threshold) (e.g. the Outline and Lifeline series) or in the
about a horizontal axis with colour interchange form of complex shapes interwoven and
more complex than 7/1960; Frontman, 1961, a counterchanged in colour according to systems
system of zig-zags giving the effect of a totem; of quite obscure but decipherable symmetry
both of these, with the blank centred Moyle, (For Ever, 1965), or yet in the form of shapes
having to some degree the character of faces. interrupted by others but again capable of
Gully-Foyle introduces a more explicit human intellectual reconstruction.
reference. It comprises a group of coloured It seems to me important that the colours,
bands making a vertical rectangle in the middle which Denny works out on the picture surface
of the picture, the rest of the picture being even when he has established the configuration
Time of Day 1 1969 articulated by a continuous band that sweeps in advance, defy naming — they are so subtle
96x 78 in.
at ound them. The central bands are not that they seem to reach specific existence only
symmetrical nor do they follow a discernible within the circumstance of shape, scale and
sequence. In this they are like those of the adjacent colour in which you see them. At the
preceding Track series and therefore may be same time their very subtlety, this uniqueness,
felt as a place. However, the size of the rectangle, and the precision of their inter-relationships,
6 feet by 2, defines it as a person and the speak of the intense care, the professionalism
complete canvas, 7 feet by 6, defines the space which has made them what they are.
just beyond the outstretched fingertips of Another group of pictures, including Bind,
Chandler's and le Corbusier's standard 1965/66 and the By Day series, 1966-7, may
man/detective — his immediate physical serve to feature another element of Denny's
domain. A degree of ambiguity between painting which is common to almost everything
person and place (or space) is recurrent in he has done — the element of elimination of
Denny's work. The central axis of his negation. It accounts in part for the symmetry
pictures is very commonly blank. Without which has been mentioned so often (this group
attempting to interpret this too literally, one of pictures is rigidly symmetrical), for the very
may see it as an attempt to lead the viewer to frequent restriction to right-angled forms, for
define himself by setting him a problem of the uniformity of hue and surface within a given
empathically working out the picture space form, and for the mode of abstraction itself. It is,
around him rather than by presenting him with I believe, both the actuality and the symbol
an image or (still less) a self-justifying system. of the artist's undeviating commitment to his art
It is in this sense that the picture operates as a and of his persistence. At the same time it is a
mirror. symbol of, and actually elicits, 'participation'.
Several of these pictures were realized in The use of the minimal notation is also like the
muted colours of unnameable hues. Perhaps use of a nick-name or acronym among members

Baby is Three 1960
84x 144 in.
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