CHARCOALS PRAISED

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31083, 11 June 1966, Page 14

CHARCOALS PRAISED

Quentin MacFarlane is showing drawings and paintings at the Little Woodware Shop and Gallery, 12 Victoria street. The in camera conditions provided by this simple gallery with its chipboard floor, whitewashed brick walls, the occasional use of a beautiful piece of wood, could meet a very real need, filling the void caused by the sad demise of the adventurous and worthwhile “Gallery 91.”

One or two Persian rugs lend the gallery a civilised air and visitors will find its domestic scale and lighting helpful in judging how pictures might appear in their own houses. The Gallery may be small but everything shows it is developing along

the right lines. The Ingenious use of curtain track as a hanging batten is typical of the no-nonsense attitude characterising MacFarlane’s approach not only to exhibitions but to art generally. The 28 works provide a very pleasant helping, not too much and not too little, in contrast with the gargantuan and ill-prepared exhibitions of late. MacFarlane’s paintings look extremely well in this Informal and wholesome setting. It seems to me that the most successful pictures are those distinguished by a range of superb blues. Whether in works exploring formal qualities, or those springing from a sensitive though penetrating understanding of sea, headland and skyline, the use of blues, with modulated areas of white, black and pellucid greens, constitutes, to my mind, a consistent coherent and valid style which, while It has tenuous connexions with Woollaston

(20) and McCahon (17), is original and personal. Less successful (this is not the place to say why a general review is for the general public not for the erudition of practising artists) are the yellow series. Perhaps the very limited range of tonal values and unresolved incidental patternlngs within the main shapes has something to do with it Two charcoal studies are quite excellent indeed No. 17, illustrated above, is masterly in its sumptious, velvety, sombre gradations. Purists might object to the use of white chalk, but examples abound in the history of art of “unorthodox techniques” becoming respectable because an artist has something worthwhile to say and discovers a new way of saying it. “Southerly Approaching” (19) is perhaps the most colourful painting to be exhibited in Christchurch for a number of years. The majestic sweep and richness make it an example of twentieth century Baroque! This kind of exhibition Is especially helpful in that it gives opportunity of following and understanding the development of an artist’s work. Because of this I lament the fact that many artists no longer date their works; while this is probably no more than an unthinking reaction against academic practices, it is nevertheless, in my opinion, a regrettable deprivation. There is so much that is good, straightforward and sensible about MacFarlane’s work pricing In pounds rather than guineas is typical that one can be confident he will not blindly follow hysterical trends and fashions reported with such relish by overseas observers. The exhibition, which I gladly recommend, will remain open until June 24. —H. J.S.