Art
Taking the pith
Evan Anthony
To ensure against damning Patricia Faulkner with faint praise, I'll start off by recommending her exhibition at the Mercury Gallery, Cork Street. Miss Faulkner takes the pith'out of a myth and then paints it. While this is not an entirely new idea, in this artist's hands it is quite serviceable. Should the pictures fail to impress, perhaps her catholic knowledge of myths will. Walking the line between illustration and painting, she succeeds, for the most part, in creating attractive and interesting pictures, using her resource material to advantage.
The pictures are oils on wood, suitably dark-framed, suggesting a 'we've come to you down through the ages' look. They stand on their own as paintings, but you will appreciate them even more, probably, if you trouble to read the summary of the story — like the one about Ran the Ravisher (a Teutonic tale) who "owned a golden net in which she tried to capture and ravish every man that ventured on the sea. She caused waves to gather about her." (Small wonder!) The colours are pretty, the detailed painting skilful, the borders stylishly decorative but . . . there is a quibble. The characters look too sulky; they appear self-consciously aware of the wonders and/or havoc they wreak. In preference to the sneers, more deadpan aloofness is needed. Ins
tead of a group ot mythological personalities, we see a cast of panto people, dressed for the occasion, but all too ploddingly down to earth, disappointingly devoid of the god-like talents their stories describe. But that is, I hasten to remind you, only a quibble, and not the final judgment.
More emphatically disappointing is Robert Young's second one-man showing at the Redfern Gallery, Cork Street. It is a hodgepodge of a collection, with a mingling of styles and attitudes that should have been sorted out before assembled and hung together. Plainly speaking, there are too many pictures that are bad, or clumsy, or unresolved. The painted silk-screen technique is now too familiar to ,pass on its own merits, and is revealed here as a gimmick. There is a surprising amount of cuteness in the exhibition in the guise of kiddie toys or symbols. While I found one or two of the watercolour and pencil drawings of a child, Jake, charming, as a show, too much attention to the potential of nursery subjects alienates.
There is no question of treating Richard Diebenkorn as a promising fellow. He has promised, and delivered, but I must count myself out of the fan club as far as his latest work at the Marlborough Fine Art, Albermarle Street, is concerned. The truth to tell, it's all a bit over-sized and boring. The skill is there, the control — the sophistication — all that is missing is a centre of interest. The canvases are elaborately and painstakingly prepared, and whether or not it is a disappointment in not finding a pay-off for his starting point — Ocean Park — I can't say, but if there is nothing more to be done in the abstract-expressionist mould then we see here, I should be happier with an obvious boat or tree or hill than with the milky haze and geo.rnetric patterning that seemingly waits for something to fillthe void. I think
the scale is one of the problems: The pictures are large, and while some areas are textured and subtly worked in part, there really • doesn't seem to be enough of which to make the expected meal. If you have not yet discovered the joys of Cezanne as a water colourist — I think his oils are really the preparation stuff for the watercolours — go to the Hayward Gallery and see some dazzling examples.
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