Page 65 - Studio Internatinal - October 1974

(Below) Katherine actually slippery. They both start off Trevor Jones at the New Art Centre,
Shift 1974
sculptures stand four-legged, this
Mild steel treated with acid h. 65½in. x apparently hovers just above the ground. with one continuous sheet of leaf-thin ondon, 10 September-5 October and
I. 50in. x w. 18½in. Looking down, the eye meets first a and pliable steel, that has been twisted 'eter Stroud at the Hoya Gallery,
(Centre below) John Foster Small sharply-lit hard upper surface, beneath round on itself like a piece of peel, and _ondon, 4-28 September
Drum 1974 Mild steel, h. 27½ in. x 1. it a horizontal plane partly clearly then bolstered, checked, and reinforced What makes a show above average?
24½ in. x w. 24 in. defined, part fuzzed off into shadow. by thick angular and rigid elements. 'urpose for one thing. Trevor Jones's
Again, it's playing off actual volume One of these works, Curve, I count as lew paintings don't have too much of
with linear, cut-out qualities, a use of good as anything in the entire show. hat. The technicals are up-dated
line against bulk that is concise and Tough, tautly-sprung, it also looks )ainterly: stains, squeegee-swept gel,
inventive. relaxed and almost throw-away. Taken mpasto oblongs. The energy is there,
John Foster, who last showed with both together, these two eliptical and the seriousness of intent, but not
Peter Hide at Marble Hill, has discarded pieces are the successes of Smart's
his chunky slabs of paving-stones held in exhibition that, considered as a whole, A the current orthodoxy. They drift
about, rehashing this and that, doing
steel braces for lopped-off cylinder is a little too varied for comfort. The he drive to get beyond the doldrums REVIEW 9
sections. Tilted away from the floor at rest smacks of exercises and ittle except display exertion. Their
angles which give them an instant demonstrations; the two box forms are trategy is unclear and inconclusive:
suggestion of thrust, one of the best sensible but uninspired, and suffer oo many deviations, too many tributes.
works, FL W, is actually pinioned from the obvious comparison with The prevalent contrast is crisp/soft,
between two steel diagonals that carry Hide's small-scale things. And an he sharp oblongs against thin skeins of
its spiral casing up into space. Painted apparently risk-taking and zany nilky gel — floats on wash if you like.
a flat battleship grey, and built up in assemblage of work knocked together n between there's a no man's land of
tiers of steel with the final circle up- from steel and wood, and very )atchwork — stains, smudges, scrubs,
ended against the general movement of beautifully coloured with tints wrung cars — which come across as carefully
the piece, it has connotations of having from the stuff itself, hedges its bets, kept details and anxious afterthoughts,
disrupting the gestural rhythm. Nor do
hese cross many contours, but simply
ollow existing configurations, so
here's little dialogue or tension across
he surface. The process is an empty/
ull cycle: when full, a further covering
:oat is swept on, the oblongs are
touched up, and the float/wash

Peter Stroud, 1971, acrylic on canvas,
44 in. sq.
situation returns. Here the theme seems
to be inertia, possibly a perverse nod to
flatness: for instead of working in
counterpoint, an oblong tends to sit on
the terminating radius of a squeegeed
arc, thereby smothing its momentum.
This could get interesting, but the
Tony Smart Low Box 1974 Mild steel Peter Hide Fastback 1974 Mild steel, varnished and painted, h. 18½ in. x 1. 40½ in. myopia of crisp handling beside the
painted, h. 14½in. x 1. 55½in. x w. 44in. x w. 24¾ in. heady gestures does nothing for pictorial
unity (unity presumably is what the
floats are after). Worrying too is the
another, more painterly, spatial cannibalised, wholly digested and then and reveals itself as basically safe and way the floats are sometimes masked
sensation that the piece has to offer; re-stated Tatlin's Tower, His best piece uninventive. The focal point for in before the looser coats get going: it
it's painted both dark and shiny, so that stands more nearly parallel to the floor, Smart's future development is
may be a way round the 'final stamp'
it reflects light back from its surface. and its curved outer surface has been undoubtedly contained in the two cliche of figure/field resolutions, but to
It's camel-coloured companion made busy with rubbings, polishings, curved pieces, which suggest allow the field to nibble away at their
piece, Advance, is larger, more matt scratchings and stained-on tinted-type considerable promise. edges is just confusing things. It would
and quirkier. Its four corner verticals colour. At one point, the outer edge Whereas all the works discussed be simpler to keep the spatial layers in
continue on up past the steel screens consists of only a connecting band of above take hold of a portion of space phase with the painting sequence, then
slung between them, ending up at steel, making an archway through into and contain it, Katherine Gili's at least the floats could be drawn with
different heights, angled outwards in the sculpture and breaking the otherwise sculptures work their way up off the more at stake,
different directions, alert, space- continuous exterior surface. On the ground, and activate or imply extension As it is the oblongs are played in
gathering. The basic square lay-out has inside, the impetus of the curve is around a central axis, The earlier pieces groups of three or four, in flung-around
been squashed up at one end, and the broken by a number of vigorous vertical seem almost folded and bent out of one scatter formations. The angles tend to
top edge of the one of the hanging sections, that chop the smooth flow piece of steel, with slight shifts of balance out and stabilise, and all they
sections has been cut at a steep angle, into a series of short sharp runs. planes moving in front of and behind do is group round the centre. Here's
giving a sense of strangely compressed Bristling inwards towards the centre of the main face and gently insinuating the scale problem again: how to use
perspective. There are points from the piece, they create actual or themselves into surrounding space, The the floats as lines while integrating
which the whole piece seems to flatten suggested cubic volumes within the most recent pieces depart from this their edges with surface movements.
out, as though pancaked; others from outer shell. The piece looks like its basic frontality, and angle up into This may be more a straight contradiction
which it spreads itself expansively. I been shoved and chopped and battered space, from arrow-head shaped ground than a dialectic.
found it had a strong and awkward into shape. It also looks like a good plate to extended upper beam. These Drawing, movement and texture
presence. It sticks, though purists will beginning for Foster's next work, and sculptures are very precisely and being up front, colour is kept in
rule it out of court. The smaller pieces more assertively individual than his beautifully crafted, with each element reserve, comfortably schematic:
here are all under knee-height, and the previous work. perfectly poised in its relationships, monochrome grounds, chromatic steps
finest of these, Fastback, is probably Where Foster sets up the basic though there are instances where one across the floats, black/white limits.
more fully resolved than either of the dynamic of the circle and then suspects that they are over-considered, Subtleties come through viscosity,
two works discussed above. It plays on interrupts its flow, Tony Smart's two slowing down their possibilities of transparency, and glass/matt effects,
the same theme, using a rectangular pieces based on this shape let your eye organic growth and discoveries made in but the lusciousness of the swept
box-shape with a lid-like upper surface, slither over their outside skins, which the making. skeins are too obviously 'left'. The long
but open at one side. Whereas the larger are polished till they seem to be Judy Marie black and white painting is the most