IN THIS BLOG:

Metamorphosis - Global Eyes (Stefan Maguran)

A Latje Latje Story (Craig Allan Charles & Trevor 'Turbo' Brown)

Luscious (Leith Semmens)

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POSTED 30 JUNE 2008

Metamorphosis – Global Eyes

WHO: Stefan Maguran

WHAT: Acrylics, oils and mixed media on canvas

WHERE: Premier Art Gallery, 284 Rundle St, Adelaide

WHEN: To July 27

The printed handout states that Stefan Maguran started painting last July, and that works by the Romanian-born artist have begun appearing in private collections “all over Adelaide and Paris”. That sounds impressive, but to me it doesn’t really matter how long Maguran has been practising art, or how popular he might be. What matters is whether his paintings speak to me… And a lot of them do.

Curator Sarah McCarthy chose 21 of Maguran’s large canvases which can be seen upstairs at Premier Art Supplies in Rundle St East. All are abstracts, or semi-abstracts. A few of them are acrylic or oil paintings but most are textured works using mixed media, and it’s these that I like best.

My wife, Lynne Flavel, and I attend on the opening night, and the first picture we look at is Blue Lake. We find ourselves gazing into the calm centre of an otherwise turgid body of solid light blue, through which other bold colours – baby-blue, dark-blue, red, yellow and solid black – make rippling patterns. The effect is quite striking. Rather like looking into the Blue Lake at Mt Gambier, we think.

We both enjoy looking at Lavender Field, for which the artist has drizzled and speckled bright pink, lilac, blue and purple paint over a black canvas. It has a strong sense of depth and light, and gives a real impression of a lavender bush. The same kind of thing could be said for Pink Carnation, although it lacks the same impact without a dark background. This one has a little too much grey, which doesn’t go so well on white. Another impressionistic painting, International Politics, appears to be in the style of Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles (on a much smaller scale of course), but I can’t say whether it reveals more of itself the more you look at it.

Among the landscapes are a few that look more like relief maps or aerial photographs, such as The Murray is Crying for Help, with its dark mountainous areas, pale salt flats and river delta shapes. One of My Dreams is, for me, a breathtaking impression of a mountain range at dusk with a shimmering lake in the foreground. And Red Mountain at Dusk presents a majestic range of horizon peaks in brown, turquoise, ochre, red and khaki, and below them, streaks of brown and grey, perhaps depicting long clouds or afternoon shadow, stretching across the canvas. It is a magnificent image.

Then there are the more abstract pieces.

We look at the dazzling pink Orgasm but don’t quite see anything sexually impulsive in it. I see an erupting brain in vivisection, or is it the edge of a fiery sun through a telescope? On the artist’s website, the same image goes under the title My Creativity.

Voodoo Rave, with its blue, orange and yellow-coloured dreadlocks, gives me the impression of a Rastafarian gathering.

While the mixed media works impress me a lot, Maguran’s straight oil and acrylic paintings lack the same impact – the hurried brushstrokes are less well defined, making the pictures look unfinished. Among them, Walking on Earth appears to be the lower part of a crucifix, with the Christ’s legs in green and red, his feet nailed to the foot rest.

I am more enthusiastic about one particular acrylic painting – the seascape, West Beach, with banded brushstrokes across the canvas reminding me of gazing across the sea at night and seeing the crests of waves catching the moonlight, with murky dark aqua in between.

Stefan Maguran may not have practised as an artist for very long, but he certainly has a burgeoning talent. I don’t like all of his works but there are some mighty fine pictures here. And their prices won’t break the bank.

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Stefan Maguran, Blue Lake (2007).

Stefan Maguran, One of My Dreams (2007).

 

Stefan Maguran, Orgasm (2007). 

Stefan Maguran, Red Mountain at Dusk (2007).

Stefan Maguran, Walking on Earth (2008).

Stefan Maguran, West Beach (2008).

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POSTED 23 JUNE 2008

WHO: Craig Allan Charles and Trevor “Turbo” Brown

WHAT: Paintings

WHERE: Better World Arts, 144 Commercial Rd, Port Adelaide

WHEN: To July 18

I haven’t been to many galleries where you can observe artists at their work while viewing an exhibition. That’s one of the pleasures of visiting Better World Arts, a relatively new venture set up in Port Adelaide to promote Aboriginal artists and give them studio space.

My gallery-going companion, Natalie Robertson, and I step around dot-painters and their extended family members as we view works by two very different Mildura artists, Craig Allan Charles and Trevor “Turbo” Brown.

Craig Charles is an award-winner in his early 30s who captures the landscapes of the Mhutti Mhutti region (around Lake Mungo, near Mildura) using layers of thick acrylic paint and gold leaf, with a lacquered finish. He strikes me as being one of a new breed of Aboriginal artists departing from yesterday’s techniques to go for a very contemporary style. But while doing so he sticks with tradition – paying homage to his ancestors, and telling important cultural stories through his images.

Turbo, on the other hand, is an emerging artist in the naïve style. His exuberant paintings feature stylistic kookaburras and other native birds, wombats, kangaroos and a platypus. They tell stories from a time when he was homeless and these creatures were his only friends.

We begin by looking at Charles’s works, of which the first is Red Cliffs – Night Time Travel – Latje Latje Mildura. The image shows two areas, black and mainly ochre, separated by an oblique jagged line. There can be no doubt that the earthy part of the frame represents the land – there is a footprint in the bottom right corner. A plank of gold leaf connects the dark area with the light.

Nana’s Kitchen Garden is a homely image resembling a flowery tablecloth that tells a story about the artist’s childhood visits to his aunties’ place. Mungo Look Out tells of camping at a lakeside on the night of a full moon. Cross Country Serpent Latje Latje is an attractive three-panel work with a prominent serpent image inspired by the artist’s experience in a dance group.

Mungo Meeting Barkindji Mhutti Mhutti Ngampa features a number of caramel, ochre, green and black shapes. The artist’s statement says it represents a lakeside event where members of several tribes come together in spiritual unity. It comprises a main panel of 122cm square with four smaller canvases, two to each side, giving me the impression that the subject transcends what we see on the central canvas.

And I am told that Tribal Grounds – Sacred Record, with its semi-circular shapes connected by dotted lines on a chocolate brown background, is a play on the “record” idea. Perhaps it is saying that an unbroken connection with the land is like having old phonograph records – the tunes are still there to be heard.

Charles uses a cracking agent on the paint surface to represent the parched earth in My Claim – Latje Latje Our Land… Sacred Sites. A painted handprint on the image says to me: “This is my place”.

Texture and shape lend a three-dimensional, tactile and almost sculpted effect to Charles’s works, whereas Turbo’s works don’t pretend to be anything other than paintings. They are bright, innocent and very appealing.

When viewing Charles’s chiefly non-naturalistic works, it may be good to read the accompanying artist statements to learn what they represent. But Turbo’s pictures hardly need explaning, with such titles as Magpie Feeding Babies, Black Cockatoo, Red Corella and Dreamtime Kookaburras.

Naïve in style they are, but there is mastery on view here. Three Playful Blue Wrens, for instance, has a wonderful sense of colour and proportion. Family of Rosellas looks like a child’s painting but for the composition’s harmonious structure and symmetry. Vertical lines of the flower stalks and overhanging tree branches play off against the horizontal fenceline through the middle. There are tufted grass trees at far left and right, their flower petals peppering the picture as if, having shaken off, are drifting in the breeze.

The soaring bird in Bunjil in Flight is quite majestic, conveying the power and custodianship attributed to the bird by the artist.

Some of Turbo’s other pictures are simply cute, such as Happy Seals, Smiling Koala and Platypus.

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Craig Allan Charles, Nana's Kitchen Garden.

 

Craig Allan Charles, Cross Country Serpent Latje Latje.

Craig Allan Charles, Tribal Grounds - Sacred Record (Latje Latje). 

Trevor 'Turbo' Brown, Blue Wrens. 

Trevor 'Turbo' Brown, Bunjil in Flight.

Trevor 'Turbo' Brown, Family of Rosellas.

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POSTED 10 JUNE 2008

Luscious

WHO: Leith Semmens

WHAT: Acrylic paintings

WHERE: Transforma Showroom, 43 Goodwood Rd (corner Young St), Wayville

WHEN: To June 30

Just look at the pictures at right – don’t they look glorious? I think so, too. But when I go to view the real thing I get a different impression.

Transforma – the bedroom furniture specialist at Goodwood – must be congratulated for arranging this exhibition of nine large semi-abstract paintings by contemporary SA artist Leith Semmens. If they are to be done justice, these pictures need to be seen where the prospective buyer intends them to go – on bedroom walls where they can colour one’s dreams. So hanging them above Transforma’s very fine timber beds, among other very classy décor, is absolutely ideal.

And I’ve got to say that I like the ideas that the artist has about water conservation in the private garden. He has painted his impressions of various succulents that do so well in our harsh climate. With each one is a story about where the particular plant grows at his parents’ place.

But when I visit the showroom with my wife Lynne and artist/neighbour Carol Spencer, we are overwhelmed by the scale of these big two- and three-panelled works. The brush strokes are altogether too crude, the colours too gaudy for our liking. We like the small publicity photos, where the colours look so homogenous, but here on the walls they are far too loud. The colours that seem so complementary in miniature clash at full size. Even in this warehouse-sized showroom, we have to stand a considerable distance back to have the same appreciation as we did of the small photographs with their softened detail.

To one side, the artist has detailed some notes on each featured plant. For example, he states that Kalanchoe thyrsifolia beta is a rich green in winter, its central stalk almost black. But in summer, he says, the plant explodes in colour. Its disc-shaped leaves change in a kaleidoscope of purples, pinks, reds, oranges and yellow. The leaves "seem to grow in a random manner adding to the drama of colour interactions”. Well, Semmens has certainly captured that drama in his picture. The colours clash. They are heavy and crude, with little compromise of shade or tone. However, I enjoy the sense of shape and perspective of the leaves – if they were fruit, I would be tempted to eat it.

Each painting, whether a diptych or triptych, has a thin band of colour on the left-hand edge and a broad band of the same colour on the right-hand canvas panel. It’s a modern stylistic thing, and I think I like it more than my companions. But we all agree that it works best in the blue/purple/violet/green of Cotyledon orbiculata beta, a very attractive picture indeed. If the left-hand panel were to be removed from the other two, it would stand on its own as a mighty fine picture. The sunlight effects give it a lovely sense of perspective.

Cotyledon orbiculata (a different picture), has a great sense of three-dimensional form with its aqua-coloured pods looking very alien-like. They are edged with a crimson-purple colour that the artist says is realistic in nature.

The redness in Echeveria “Big Red” beta looks very erotic to me – perfect in a couple’s bedroom, I dare say!

It’s worth reading the notes the artist includes with each title. It goes some way to explaining his colour choices. For example, look at Echeveria “Big Red”. Semmens says the thick leathery leaves store water and change shape and colour depending on the availability of water, heat and sunlight. “I like how in the middle of summer the leaves are a cold blue/purple colour on top but underneath the colour refracts in vivid reds,” he writes.

But give a painting too much contrast in tone and colour, and it loses form – as it does here. The same colours in photographs of Semmens’ paintings are compressed and muted, allowing the form to come through.

Usually, photographs of art do it no justice. In this case, looking at the photographs actually enhances it. Go along and see how the real thing strikes you.

While you are there, don’t miss Aloe plicatilis, a very green picture of the plant more commonly known as fan aloe, located in the corner window room facing the south-bound traffic. It goes very well with the green bedding.

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Leith Semmens, Kalanchoe thyrsifolia beta (acrylic on canvas).

Leith Semmens, Cotyledon orbiculata beta (acrylic on canvas)

 

Leith Semmens, Cotyledon orbiculata (acrylic on canvas)

Leith Semmens, Echeveria "Big Red" beta (acrylic on canvas)

Leith Semmens, Echeveria "Big Red"  (acrylic on canvas)

Leith Semmens, Bromeliad (acrylic on canvas)