Exhibitions
Dunedin
R.D.J. COLLINS
PHILIP TRUSTTUM 1976 Banner Paintings
Philip Trusttum's exhibition of 1976 Banner Paintings at the Bosshard Galleries in March, drew on recollections and tangible mementoes of his 1975 European visit. The unstretched canvases (mostly very large - some up to 14 feet long) were in some instances made up of several pieces roughly sewn together - patchworks of experience in more ways than one The raw visual stimulus was provided by tickets, bills and maps, numerals, exotic alphabets and mysterious words, often confusing in their own right, frequently obscure: but exciting too, for they are in fact magic carpets, the open-sesames to whole new worlds. The ordering of this material is not equally clear in all the works. In some, impetuous lyricism appears to dominate, but in others a more measured form is evident. Back Home is divided into vertical bands, the most brightly coloured on the left, the darkest on the right; it can perhaps be read as an image of time passing as the traveller flies east, crossing time zones and flying from day into night. Sign of the Car associates the outline of a car with a modified but still recognizable map of the western Pyrenees. In others, the structure is borrowed from a hotel bill or a table of airlines fares.
Trusttum's first European visit in 1972 initiated a vibrant series of Van Gogh-inspired works: his return there appears to have opened another distinct vein of expression, in which humour and the detachment it implies happily coexist with a joyous celebration of widely varied memories.
Originally published in Art New Zealand 5 April/May 1977