Page 90 - Studio International - May June 1975

eleven paintings shown at the
William Darby gallery in March
achieved a level of seriousness
altogether new in his work; or at
least some of them do. The
exhibition was very uneven (and
very badly hung), but about half of
the paintings showed a real chance
taken with colour that is all too
rare in recent art. Bright, often
harsh, and sometimes electric
colours seem to have been
poured down canvases fastened
over stretcher pieces or flat
boards. Given this procedure it is
not surprising that there is
something reminiscent of Louis's
Veils about these works. But the
astonishing colour, and the far
more emphatically established
surfaces, set them apart. Some are
too merely phenomenal in effect:
too much cropped-out surfaces
`framed' around with applied
drawing or with marks left from
the edges of the board.
Occasionally, the applied drawing
has something unnecessarily
dainty about it, particularly on
this smallish scale. However, two
very narrow paintings
(77 x 24½ in), Kingley's Pandora's
Box and Prometheus Bound, with
loose fluid pourings down their
centres, and especially three
similar narrow veil-like works
(Jason on Lemnos, Elizabeth
Agatha and Sheridan B.) achieve
real authority. They are flat,
frontal and emphatically surface
paintings, with paint of differing
viscosities allowed to run and
spread out down their lengths.
One, which used contrasts of
matte and gloss to support the
balance of thin and thick paint
benefited from this enrichment.
But what is most striking about Sean Scully subdivisions is divided too on, and to the random markings
these works is not merely their Rowan Gallery indecisively between the separate the tape has left when torn away.
richness but their unconfined 4 April-1 May 30 inch canvases that are bolted In themselves these incidents are
appealing, but they don't inform
together, and the colour changes
feeling. Although they contain a The vitality of Sean Scully's the bars undergo from square to the compositional structure. They
great deal of incident, they new paintings invades the gallery. square. provide 'information', but only
manage — paradoxically — to They are decorative in the best The other four paintings are like interference on a TV set
possess a kind of exhilarating sense. The room is filled with their single canvases. The subdivisions indicates the line frequency.
`emptiness' at the same time. visual enthusiasm. If the earlier are clearer. The lines do go right
The centred pourings do not so work was too frenzied, too visually across, changing colour from area Possibly they detract from the
much fill or occupy the canvas as dominant, there is enough sense to area, but they don't share a over-all legibility of the patterning.
open it out, enlarge it and push in this work to make them common background colour. But the consistency of the surface
out its flatness. Bowling has persuasive beyond an initial Their width, a half-inch, more or in Scully's work comes from the
clearly been looking at Olitski's impact. less equals the gap in between way he goes along with what the
work as well as Louis's. The Scully has undergone a period them, the subtracted interval tape does. The accidents enhance
effect of his work is almost Louis of revision, trying to eliminate the where the tape was. This lets the an otherwise mechanical
over Olitski: the 'images' of the stereoscopic effect of the inter- constituent colours of an area technique. I suppose it is when
former and the 'emptiness' of the lacing bands by holding them to begin to blend together. The they seem arranged that the larger
latter. His problem is now to hold the physical contingencies of separate squares are more colour structure gets to be like a
onto what he has achieved. There surface activity. Instead of definite in character. Though the setting for self-conscious
painterly activity. Arguably this
was one painting (Not There, accumulating layer upon layer, he total colour effect of the earlier could be sorted out if the colour
Here!) which showed him used the masking tape so as the two paintings is more readily sequence of the squares was more
controlling and using his process bands would be subtractions (tape coherent, it is thereby less keyed into the taping sequence,
more deliberately. It looked, is the sine qua non of Scully's art). interesting. It is too much an probably in a simpler design. It's
therefore, more studied; With many of the tapes left effect, the colour is too much much more of a temptation to
somewhat lacking the daring of under the paint, the paintings thrown out as a stimulant. In the complicate a painting than to
the best of the others (as well as carry a buried potential, only others the colour appears still in simplify it.
moving over to Poons's recent discoverable by subtraction. the process of being made, perhaps Yet simplification might
work in its vertical striations). The The paintings have become because the question of dissipate their energy. The method
methodical and the phenomenal quieter, slower, more reflective. distinguishing the areas was more does seem at odds with itself — the
are the two opposite poles of The six paintings on show all urgent an internal to the provisional arrangement of the
Bowling's recent painting. The employ the same format: a square paintings. squares against the implied
best of his work lies somewhere in subdivided into nine squares. The By making the taping finality of the grid, the
between. two least absorbing paintings are procedure more self-evident, programming of tapes and
John Elderfield the earliest, where the form is Scully found himself more layers, the colour control, the
only half realized. In the first involved with compositional allowed mistakes — but these are
place the criss-crossing bars are problems. The layers are as much functional oppositions
too readily identifiable as bars. juxtaposed against each other in a pictorial sense as
The way they are spaced laterally instead of in depth. The contradictions. Some level of
separates them from their surface has a 'printed' flatness to conflict helps to needle an artist.
coloured ground. The job of it, due to both the regular What matters is whether the
distinguishing the nine embossing of the tape that is left conflict is integrated into a
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