Page 54 - Studio International - March 1974

mural study ; scribbled shapes as if to the room and to fill it with pulsations methodology and placement rather slightly more subtle; the artist looking
be marked 'red', 'blue', etc. There is of light. On the one hand her paintings than with visual complexity. so any over his shoulder. This is a logical
thus no pretence. One can easily say appeared stable, but at the same time similarity is fortuitous. She is closer tract on which the series might have
'Anyone could have done these', and their surfaces flickered with patches in sensibility to Agnes Martin although continued, or terminated. But Boshier
that of course is pure Warhol. Warhol of vibrant white, so their presence their works scarcely resemble each immediately goes off the idea to more
is giving nothing except a concept in created a feeling of well-being others'. They are both concerned to detailed remarks on the character of
much of his earlier work ; here it is not modified by lightheadedness. relate drawing with painting in one his own shape.
even that. It is neither neo-cubist use Her paintings require close work and to elevate drawing from its The collaging is now completely
of space nor traditional illusionistic scrutiny to discover the source of subordinate role (both owe a debt to deleted from the remaining thirty-five
three-dimensionality; it is pure their power. Their complex surfaces Klee here). Each has used drawings. The shapes which had
socialist realism. It's a picture of Mao. are built up from small patches of horizontally drawn lines with white framed the 'statement' become the
It's a 'that's what he looks like' pencil white pigment, each differing in pigment to create over-all, frontal subject as Boshier lets the impulsive
sketch. Warhol has reached what density, and laid on to the canvas images, but whereas in Martin's and descriptive quality of line
Roland Barthes would call zero- within narrow, parallel bands. These paintings the lines overlay and precede his control of it. The
degree drawing. And choice becomes patches create tonal modulations obscure the paint underneath, in physicality of these works is
exposed as purely arbitrary, subjective which build up shallow and Leapman's work the order is reversed. distinctly more dynamic, more
and as meaningless as the price ambiguous space. The surfaces Because of this difference Martin's generous. The figural allusions which
(£5000), here. appear to pulsate, but this is not just paintings declare themselves, surface look half-animal, half-
Peter Gidal an optical flickering, it is the body whereas Leapman's are more abstract, like archetypal posings.
pulse that one is aware of. The secretive. Since the images are unconscious and
Edwina Leapman at the New Art surface nuances are exaggerated by Sarah Kent unspecific, they suggest the most
Centre, London, 15 January — 9 an almost invisible under-painting,
February Derek Boshier 54 Drawings, at
Edwina Leapman's work has Angela Flowers, London, 30 January
developed consistently in the last — 16 February
ten years with the exploration of Derek Boshier's recent exhibition at
monochrome painting. In the middle the Whitechapel Gallery demonstrated
sixties she was applying bright and that, unlike many artists arriving at
modulated colour in broad maturity, he has not confined himself
horizontal bands on to the canvas. In to a particular iconographical mark.
1967 she began to use acrylics and to This permits his work, however
stain the canvas with fields of colour resolved or incomplete individual
closely related in hue, such as blues pieces may be, a course of open
and greens. In 1969 she introduced investigation. As an early Pop painter,
grids into her work as an ordering Boshier might have stopped with a
system, which led to her large (10x 5 predictable trademark ; viewing the
Edwina Leapman Untitled 1972
feet) vertical blue painting that was recent drawings at Angela Flowers,
Acrylic on canvas, 167 212 cm.
exhibited in the John Moores one is very pleased that he did not.
exhibition of 1972. This consisted of a which consists of graphite lines freely Boshier began this series by looking
vertical series of equal rectangles of drawn along a rule on to the rough at drawings done in 1962. Four of
modulated blue floating in a blue surface of primed canvas, which these are included in the exhibition.
ground. This series of painting was causes irregularities in their thickness They are small, charcoal on paper Derek Boshier Drawing 1973 15 x 11 in.
related to Don Judd's steel and and density. In the most recent works of simple male figures
Plexiglas boxes of 1966-69, placed paintings these are drawn horizontally juxtaposed to pyramids, decorated by basic mental shapes, pictographs of
up or along the wall. Like his sculpture to create narrow bands of varying an occasional palm. Projecting abstraction. Conscious graphic
they were an attempt to combine the width. Next the canvas is stained with significance through simplicity, the arrangement is deleted from a series
geometric simplicity of minimalism patches of colour over and between figures suggest primordial man as a which began by balancing forms in
with surface subtleties. Leapman was, this linear structure, and finally this child might shape him. The drawings recessional and ascensional line.
however, dissatisfied with the figure- colour is obscured by the upper are strangely gay, evocative of cave Once the drawings describe line only,
ground connotations that were layers of white, until its existence can paintings, with the figure in one they grow masterful, ambiguous and
inherent in this series. only just be sensed through the dimension. The recent series started flat. All visual devices are removed ;
During 1971 she concentrated for white patches, lending luminosity to by cutting up a black and white there is no precedence, no dominance,
six months on drawing without the surface. The linear sub-structure photograph of an old drawing and no recession, no swagger and no
colour and on a reappraisal of her is also partially obliterated, the lines collaging it to the surface of a new instruction for seeing the shapes.
work. During this period she came being 'squeezed out' by the pigment, one. The framing shapes of geometric Freed from these kinds of
to realize that colour as hue was not making them come and go from forms were then added. In the fifty- preconceptions, Boshier's gesture
important to her. Her concern had vision. Nevertheless the banding two drawings which follow, Boshier flows through each rather than from
always been with the modulations remains apparent since it structures investigates his intuitive use of line one to the next in images not subject
she could obtain within a chosen the whole painting, controls the by describing one visual to an analysis by part. Especially in the
colour rather than with the colour placing of the pigment, and finally transformation, from an imagistic to an last four works, one senses that
itself, and so she began to experiment provides stability for the floating internal content. continuous time which is finite, and
with the use of white. By the end of upper layers. The first two works, then, are simultaneous time which is not, have
that year she had returned to painting The paintings owe their strength transitional, bridging the early sixties come together in abstraction on an
and had devised her present working and energy to the opposition of and the present. The next group of edge, through the artist's making a
method, whereby she finally achieved dynamic and still forces. The images are strikingly grave and sharp mark to make a definition. The series
that fusion of geometric and free expressive fluidity of the upper layers —juxtapositions of one kind of concludes in a language of perfect
elements that she had been is checked by the stability of the violence with another; for example a calligraphy.
investigating for ten years. The work understructure. This dichotomy also miner's face with a gaudy Baroque Boshier did the drawings in two
in the recent exhibition all dates from interested Paul Klee. In his notebook clock. This might be called the weeks. One may view not only the
this final period. 'The Thinking Eye' he wrote : 'A political moment in the series, relating end, but the steps, for a beautiful
Her paintings need to be seen in concept is not thinkable without its to Boshier's concern about his art's picture may seem an arrival but is
isolation. Although they are quite opposite. There are only pairs of audience. The framing line in this never actually so. Every extraneous
large (60x 80 in.) and very concepts. Rest and unrest as the section becomes more forceful as it is mental and visual element must find
beautiful, they do not reveal alternative elements in the painters increasingly figurative. its way out of the picture. Agnes
themselves at first glance because of procedure'. In writing this he echoed There is a sharp demarcation Martin has said the bad paintings are
their subtlety. They are quiet and the Taoist saying 'Stillness is the ruler between the end of the collaged the important ones for the artist. So
concerned with private introspection. of movement'. images and the course of pure with Boshier; it is clear that while the
Although each painting displayed Superficially Edwina Leapman's abstraction ; two drawings cited in early drawings are interesting,
such reserve, together their calm work resembles Robert Ryman's, but the catalogue, numbers 18 and 19 conceptually they are only archaic
insistence pervaded the gallery space. the comparison ends there because which have 'art world references'. projections of their own refinement.
Their luminosity seemed to enlarge his work is concerned with The allusion is still political but Cara Montgomery