Page 99 - Studio International - July August 1975

concept nor object but to the mystery is added by a faint almost perfectly innocent of As the spectator moved into a
relation between them, which is a reflection of Benin bronzes. information. stereoscopic head-on view the
metaphor for the fundamental Jake Kempsall, Ainslie Yule, Duncan Macmillan works for a blurry moment
dilemma of experience. His own and Alastair Park can perhaps became wild creatures, irregular
weakness is that he sometimes be grouped together as their work Martin Naylor elongated figures. On the left face
forgets that he is dealing with a all relates, however remotely, to Rowan Gallery, 9 May-12 June painted images had been very
metaphor that works by resolving the free standing figure. Jake deliberately impressed on to the
the dilemma into a single image. Kempsall's two works were in The buoyant, audacious wood fabric by the direct action
Thus the Incomplete Open Cubes fact straightforward figures, one feeling generated by Martin of artistic muscle. Washes were
admirably demonstrates the beautifully carved wooden totem Naylor's latest sculptures gave scrubbed into the wood, pen
problem but not its resolution. and the other a comical coloured them a character quite unlike diagrams made with straight-
This is not true of the wall fibreglass image reminiscent of that of anything he has shown edges that inevitably bruised the
drawings, however, which have e. e. cummings' poem The previously. The format of the wood fibres and wood mouldings
an economical directness Balloon Man. Ainslie Yule had recent works was fairly simple; a attached with heavy countersunk
reminiscent of Mondrian. Their three carefully carpentered series of discarded boards were screws. Indeed in Fortress 2
meaning is inherent in the image vertical wooden boxes with a angled steeply from the wall to a strip from the outside layer
which, as its impermanence nautical air to them: one of the floor. They gave the general of the plywood had been
implies, belongs fully neither to them, Spice Box, by the addition impression of clean shapes, ones chiselled away and replaced by
intellect nor artefact, but of the aroma of spices becomes capable of thrusting themselves an inlay of clean wood.
somewhere mysterious between quite romantically evocative. into the ground, pulled on by a Part of the reason these works
the two. Alastair Park's one piece was tug of oblique gravity. The radiated such bravado and
The title of the Scottish Sculpture a cheerfully crude pseudo- corners of the boards had been intensity was because they
show was both more mechanical phallus called trimmed away, lending the whole appeared to be so freshly done;
comprehensive and more precise Battering Ram. form a peculiar stance at once one felt the movement of the
than the show itself. Several The seventh member of this taut and vigilant like the sails of a artist, back and forth, to be
serious sculptors in Scotland group, James McGlade, is a Chinese junk or a ship's keel. literally lingering in the air. He
were notably absent from the painter but his work here could The arrangement of the six had obviously worked
eleven listed in the catalogue, and claim to be sculpture, albeit with pieces by height seemed tightly instinctively, rubbing out where
although it is valid to point out a clear pictorial element in some controlled and in keeping with necessary while allowing the
that the distinction between of it. His arrangements of stones, their emphatic titles, Scabbard works to dictate their own ends.
painting and sculpture is only old timber, wire etc were highly and Fortress. The artist's role had almost been
convention, a significant amount focused images invoking the From a distant frontal view the to act as conjurer.
of the work here had no very primeval megalithic landscape works read as tense, quivering In fact the incredibly rich
clear place in a self-proclaimed art of Scotland, but in a way that lines. When one approached the drawings which preceded these
sculpture exhibition. is sensitive and individual. The boards from the side they then sculptures were evidence of the
Nevertheless, taking the show for particular quality of his transformed into partitions, evolution of his thinking
what it was and not what it set composition and sense of human-sized surfaces offering an toward a looser, gestural
out to be, one result of the colour perhaps reveals the abundance of painterly detail approach. Among the drawings
somewhat random treatment of painter, but his work is none the within an intimate reach. Not only were some which succeeded in
its theme was refreshing variety. worse for that. His largest piece could one scrutinize the work obliterating the dividing line
The impression of all the work The Sacred Origins of Metrology from face-on, but there was the between mass and space, so that
together was distinctly lively, was among the best in the show. possibility of judging the surface the cloudy flux of the background
though being so heterogeneous Glen Onwin and Michael in profile, of measuring the merged with the suspended
it is difficult to find a basis for a Docherty are also both painters. substantiality and glaze of the objects. Likewise, in the
review. For reasons of space if Although their work here did actual paint and of deciphering sculptures the series of banal
not strict justice it seems best to approach the three-dimensional the formation of the wood and circles and scribbles amounted
concentrate on the work that was image, it did so from a point of metal relief. cumulatively to an abstract
clearly sculpture. Of the eleven view that was firmly that of the Until the works in this series visual poem homogeneous with
artists participating the work of painter. In so far as it had a come to be shown individually the surface to which it was
seven belongs in this category as three-dimensional element it only or in another space one cannot applied. The pitfall for this kind of
it is generally understood —a three gave a gloss on the two- help but remember their group tachisme is, of course, that the
dimensional art wrought, cast, dimensional image. The same was identity. Indeed, given the individual lines often appear
assembled or constructed — true of John Kirkwood's unusual aerial view at the Rowan insignificant and if they are seen
and each of these is working arrangement of chairs, mirrors, Gallery one initially felt to be nonproductive within the
confidently in a distinct idiom. black and plain boards. Even confronted by a cube seemingly total context, detach themselves
Fred Bushe, Jake Harvey, and though carried out in three subdivided into stalls or booths. in batches of triviality. For the
Bill Scott all work in metal, dimensions it was essentially a The divisions isolated the most part Naylor's activity was
though the latter also had three reflection on the nature of the visitors into separate spaces and not gratuitious.
wooden assemblages. Fred two-dimensional image. necessarily created a special Previously it had been his
Bushe had two works in painted The eleventh artist was Tam relationship between the opposite inclination to isolate
sheet steel. Each uses two related MacPhail. His contribution was faces of adjacent pieces. The configurations and to space
elements to suggest elegant some sybilline writing on the wall uniform pattern of the shapes them one from another as with a
symmetries and asymmetries. specially inspired by the suggested that the works had sheet of laboratory specimens.
His Yellow Fold is a very occasion, and so rarified as to been mechanically stamped out, Each individual mark called for
satisfying piece. Jake Harvey is have easily passed unnoticed. like templates, for the purpose of a painstakingly precise
one of the youngest contributors He seems to have muddled his art being assembled into larger, interpretation and the context
to the show and since his work with his ego. To adapt a phrase minimal solids. But these was usually autobiographical.
has been little seen before, it is from Constable, an artist who observations shifted considerably Even when it was not necessary
the more striking. He works in expresses nothing but himself with a closer look. to literally identify these
wrought scrap steel making very chooses of necessity a very dull The three surfaces of each metaphors they seemed
physical-looking objects. His subject. piece, from right to left, frustratingly personal, placed
largest piece, Window exchanging This show overall was established a set sequence which within a self-contained
glances with a landscape stimulating and well worthwhile. was in fact a progression of three conundrum. Now, because of the
is a series of Miroesque shapes The selection, whatever its violently different notes. After more general appearance of the
sprouting in a single plane from logical faults, put together a wide a time the changes became individual images, the total flow
an open loop of steel. range of work whose common anticipated, like the repeated was less self-conscious and more
Bill Scott's works here were all quality was its confidence and bars of music in an emphatic electrifying.
small. The six pieces included security in the use of an idiom. symphony. The right-hand sides The strands in Naylor's work
three wooden assemblages and It was the lack of just this which were bare except for a central spot have changed very little, but his
three in a very yellow cast was the most signal fault in much stained directly on to the dryish increasing experience has
bronze. These latter seem to of the art of the older generation wood grain of the blockboard strengthened his artistic
derive a spatial arrangement in Scotland and it is particularly and plyboard. From this position sensitivity. In the first pieces he
from Giacometti, but the figures encouraging to see such one became aware of the showed, one felt the strong
developing the associative confidence in sculpture which overhanging strips of wood and influence of the Post-
quality of the objets trouvês in has been so weakly rooted here in the metal shapes. Some of them Minimalists (particularly Beuys
the assemblages are half- the past. originated from the opposite side and Eva Hesse). During the late
realized shapes, like memories The catalogue, though not while others rested precariously 'sixties these artists were asking
partially recovered. Some ritual short on size, managed to be on the 1 in. edges. the viewer to ponder and
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