Exhibitions
Auckland
MICHAEL DUNN
GEOFF THORNLEY Paintings 1975
Nine paintings in the show, nine of a series that numbers more than twenty. Paintings in a series suggest continuity, also variation, some things stable, some that differ: at first, perhaps, the impression that the resemblances between works are more noticeable than the difference. Mostly these paintings are grey looking or off-white. Not to do with strong colours, more with subtle tonal distinctions. Are the pleasures of such works elitist? To the unaware these surfaces might seem unformed. They are like markings on a plaster wall seen under glass, through a window; or like clouds of dense gas pressed in against some transparent retaining wall. More simply it is paint applied to paper we look at and think about. The associations are there, but not basic. How is that paint put on? Not easy to know. Obviously not by brushwork alone. The paint appears to have been allowed to run on the paper, to stain, to dry, to make its own shapes in part. Then there is the suggestion of overlays with opaque paint, of covering, controlling, articulating. Not to paint anything but to make the process of painting provide its own meaning. So it seems.
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GEOFF THORNLEY Untitled No 12 1975 175 x 113 cm. (Gallery Data) |
These are not greatly different from Thornley's Albus series shown a few years ago at the Petar James gallery, and later at Sao Paulo. That is the first impression. The second is that they are recognisably less structured. The geometrical grid that was present in the earlier works has gone. Its absence means a loss of explicit reference to the picture plane. Also, I think, a loss of scale. The images seem to shrink in to their frames rather than expand outwards. You get an effect of distance rather than closeness. The glass over the paintings also acts to seal off the viewer. Our reflections, as we move in the room, hide parts of the paintings below and suggest greater depth between the glass surface and the painted one than actually exists. At times, I got the impression of looking through a Iens at some remote galaxy in space. There is that kind of ambiguity in the spatial reading of the works which marks an important departure from the concreteness of the Albus series. Whether it is an improvement or not is debateable.
Technically the 1975 works are Thornley's most refined of those I have seen. But, to some, the refinements of Thornley's art might seem a trivial concern in a world of pressing social and economic problems. That objection is far from the truth. The values these works embody are essentially non-materialist because they come from the pleasure the eye and mind can derive from the sophisticated manipulation of paint. That does not need money. It needs time, thought and application. There is no short cut, no easy way to achieve the right kind of insight. A pity then that the high price tags, (over $2,000) mean only a few will actually own these works. We are dependent on public art galleries for opportunities to see Thornley's paintings on more than a short term basis.
Some might say there is no sense of place, no local identity. That is the almost obsessive feature of critical reaction in New Zealand today. In sport, international yardsticks, the widest horizons; in art, local measures only, nothing beyond our own backyard. Fortunately many young painters do not accept this insistent line about art. Thornley's work is about here, is about now. He is a New Zealander and he does these paintings in Auckland. Can you be more a part of what is happening than that? What we I have to talk about in terms of our cultural identity is the reality artists give us, not the old myths that no longer apply, if they ever did. The fact is we are not totally isolated anymore and it is quite pointless to pretend we can keep our local products free from the taint of a dreaded overseas influence. Nothing can stop a New Zealander from being that. Even those who try the hardest to be like painters in the New York scene will not be like them as long as their roots remain here. To belong there you have to be there, live there. Thornley does not.
Originally published in Art New Zealand 7 August/September/October 1977