Exhibitions
Auckland
TOM HUTCHINS
MURRAY HEDWIG Single Images and Sequences
Transition and restraint - these are two major communications from Murray Hedwig's photographs - quite apart from their manifest subjects.
Single images such as Sign/Man, 1973, Facade, 1974 and Beach, Karamea, 1976, have blurred elements - a pedestrian, a ventilation fan, a wave - from actual movement in their respective subjects. As well, there is wry humour in the first, rigorous design in the second, and powerful natural rhythm in the third.
Time is chopped into discrete moments and re-assembled into more complex wholes in his 'several-images-seen-as-one' series. For example: Wall Passing People, 1971 carries on somewhat from Sign Man, 1973, but stresses the permanence of a massive brick wall brushed by transitory moments of traffic. More ambitious is Homage to Homo Sapiens: Beach Activity, 1971. Six small colour images from the same participant observer's view show the miniscule interactions of people sitting closely-grouped on a beach. The restrained colours and minor changes from one frame to the. next support a wry homage to our species, seen here not so much as Mr So-and-so or Miss Such-and-such, but as gregarious mammals - maybe seals - enjoying sun and company.
Another kind of transition is seen in Lyttleton Room/Wall, 1971, with its three images arranged vertically. At top is a view through a window, of a brick wall with a window. Next is a section of a brick wall, and at the bottom a closer view of the same wall and window as at the top. There is a sense of approach and active looking. But a purely imposed idea of 'brick wall' dominates because the middle image is quite obviously a different wall from that seen in the other two images - with different bricks, different mortar.
The transition from the visible evidence of camera reality to imposed idea is also strong in other series and images. Perhaps it stems partly from a photographer's training in graphic design. The intervention of 'design' ideas is seen most strongly in Birdling's Flat with Unique Square, 1976. This has three views of a landscape lined up in a tilt down the mount, but following the horizon established in the top tilted image by an actual plastic set-square bearing the brand-name Unique Square. This device seems quite at odds with the restrained and understated style of most of his other images.
The most impressive transition is from black/white to colour. The similarity of restraint in both media gently transports one across the, 'colour bar'. For example, side by side are the black/white Surf, Heaphy Track, 1976, with its blurred but voluminous surf and dark curve of rocks, and Beach, Heaphy Track, 1976 in the soft warm colours of driftwood and cool blue water; and on the other side of the black/white print is another deli. cately restrained colour print with soft grey-blue water and muted sand colour: Beach Karamea, 1976. The three make a very disciplined transition - with the viewer hardly aware of media differences.
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MURRAY HEDWIG Garage (full of pillows), 1972 black/white photograph |
Stronger use of colour is apparent in what at first looks like a cathedral window - Coca Cola Crates, 1976. This is an almost symmetrical arrangement of crates with dark reds, soft yellows, pale blues surrounded by dark areas: a fine experience of the formal beauty that faces us in mundane objects. But the best example of the personal style of restraint in both media is in the side-by-side display of Garage (full of pillows), 1972 (black/white) and Shed, Springston, 1976 (colour). The first has dappled textures of pillows pressing against the glass window, and strong texture of paint on the door and walls. It is about materials, surfaces, light, the physical presence of ordinary things made extraordinary by camera vision. Lacking actual colour, it has the subjective equivalents of colour in its disciplined printing.
Next to it, the soft pinks and muted greens of a similar area of shed wall have the same restrained power. The colour image is about the quiet beauty of the colour of ordinary things seen without dramatics or exaggeration. Both prints make irrelevant the usual argument about the difference between colour and black/white processes. Here, both are subjected to the same disciplined sensibility - showing that personal vision and personal control of the media are the complementary voices of the artist.
Originally published in Art New Zealand 4 Febraury/March 1977