Some great shows on in Sydney

Images: Euan McLeod "Oarless" and "Snow Storm" both 2010 and Oil on Canvas

Finally! My lament about the state of Landscape painting exhibitions in Sydney is no more! On show this week are a number of excellent exhibitions which have returned my faith in the state of art in Sydney

At Watters Gallery, Euan McLeod follows in the footsteps of the great Sydney Nolan in an extensive and also excellent exhibition of works, "Glacial" made in the Antarctic. Large emerald rocks drip with ice, snow and heavy, cold clouds; an abominable snow man/artist stares at his bare canvas in a snowy landscape with mittened, dumb hands ; hikers are chained together to summit a towering Iceberg; whilst a lonely, nude and tired ghost pulls his "not-quite there" rowboat ashore an impossible glacial edge only to be confronted by a huge mountain of white. Vintage McLeod which was an almost sold out exhibition although it only opened last Wednesday night.

Speaking of Tuckson and Watters...

Frank Watters commented on my blog regarding the Tuckson show:

"I liked, very much what you have written about Tuckson. As you have noticed, he never signed or dated work. He hadn't really planned on exhibiting. He felt it would have been unethical because he was an art bureaucrat. A rare person! BUT he stored the work carefully.

As far as we can judge all of these were made between 1952 and 1956. The paper which they have been laminated to is Japanese not Indian".

Obviously, someone making art for the hellovit can out do all those of us who are wayliad by the serious pursuit!

Tony Tuckson -"Pairs," Watters Gallery Darlinghurst

I wandered into this gallery, knowing that I could reliably find something interesting at this iconic space of choice of many Sydney artists . I didn't even know that Tony Tuckson was on here, and what a joyful discovery that was!

I must preface this review with a comment: I often think that the work of deceased artists is denigrated by the post-humus exhibitions conducted by their galleries, digging up anything that is half decent and offering it to the name-hungry art "connoisseur" (with an understood tag line "buy now, very limited stock available"). Many artist's private musings, thoughts and scribbles alike are bundled up with drawings and artwork yet to be finished or to survive the artist's editing process and offered as works of value from a genius' mind. I understand that these items have an academic use, and students of art and history love and need to know what the artist was thinking, musing and scribbling about. But I think that the artist's gallery should donate such work to the appropriate galleries or museums and resist the temptation to make money, while protecting and enhancing the reputation of the artist who, in life, has enriched them in more ways than one.

That said, this exhibition does not fit the above category. Many of the works are easily identified as Tucksons, with the added bonus of displaying the influence of Ian Fairweather -two for the price of one! (According to Frank Watters, Fairweather was one of the few artists whose work Tuckson owned.) I hadn't picked up this influence before, but these works display the link so clearly that I think I must have been blind not to realise it. That discovery alone is worth seeing this exhibition.

But -there's more. Tuckson reveals himself to be a master of gouache - the way he moves it around the page and lets it dribble and fall shows a skill level easily as strong as his oil works, for which he is better known. Further, the sheer volume of the sketches, mostly in ball point pen, emphasises the dedication of this artist who must have been drawing every minute he wasn't being the (full time) Deputy Director at the Art Gallery of New South Wales! No lunch break for this guy.

Some of the works show an obvious influence from Picasso and other artists, being executed in a search to discover and internalise how these works were made - the "art" in the paintings. My only criticism of the show is that none of the works have a date on them so I can locate them in Tuckson's history and in relation to what was happening in the world at the time -but that's probably because they weren't dated by the artist, whose full time job seems to have allowed him a freedom to paint and draw whatever he pleased, without concerns for his "career" as an artist or where the next dollar was coming from (a lesson duly noted by this artist!)

Apparently, these works would not have been able to be exhibited even a few years ago, such was the state of the paper that was used -any piece that came to hand. However, the Watters staff were insistent that these works needed showing, and discovered that a lengthy process of lamination onto a special Indian, acid free paper would preserve them. This and the framing costs mean that the gallery stands to make little profit from this exhibition.

Do yourself a favour and go see it - on till 3rd October

Image: Tony Tuckson, td2914 Gouache on paper 55.9 x 78.6cm

John Peart, “Mainly Painting”

Went to visit the almost renovated, and thankfully quieter Watters Gallery to see this show by this well respected and prolific former teacher of mine. There were a number of unexpected treasures here, the most obvious being “E camaldulensis”, a wall sculpture made by this painter from the twigs/branches of the same name, intertwined in a grid formation that presents the basis of John’s investigations over the last couple of shows. The structure throws pleasant shadows on the wall and intrigues the eye with the play between real and ephemeral; and rough tactility of the materials opposing the geometric, linear nature of the final structure.

Frankly, besides loving the work, I was jealous because I had thought of doing a sculpture in found branches for my upcoming show, "Trees for my Father", and now it will look like I copied him. Damn!

As for the rest of the show, there is a surprising variety coming from works more closely related to this sculpture in their rawness (such as “Lattice”, “ShadowGrille” and the collages) combined with more finished, but still related works - all line, grid and experimental process – such as Ground Formations, the “Panel” paintings and Harvey’s shields. Through it all, it’s obvious that John is playing with chance -the multiple possibilities of his arrangements of squares in the “Grid” pictures; the varied drip, brush, line and colour work apparently laid at random; and the layering process, which leaves some elements to show through whilst others are coloured, attest to this.

Here is the work of an artist in control of his medium and process, and the painting, “Gradeground 1” is a ripper! (Geoffrey Legge, the co-Director of Watters quietly told me this one painting would knock Pollock’s “Blue Poles” out of the gallery if placed beside it). For my money, “Ground Formations” was close on its heels.

However, as I often find with John’s shows, a little more editing would work wonders in my opinion. Some paintings tend towards the muddy (“Grey Grid”) or uncomfortable/ugly colour combinations (“Tetrad 5”) and one of the Panel Paintings (I think it was 5) just didn’t work – it looked simply messy to me, and my eye kept going to one area that had red in it and being left stranded there. The collages are all pretty good and excellent value for an artist of this standing.

John Peart, Watters Gallery 11^th Aug to 5^th September

Image: John Peart, “E Camaldulensis”, 2009 Red gum wood, 122 x 244 x 15cm