Adelaide Review
PIT KASSEL, paintings
JAMES WARREN-SMITH, mixed media sculptures
BMG Art
Kassel's musos and
dancers were articulated by broad brush block ins.
Warren Smith's
sculptures, although varied in media and format, also
favoured
fragmentation and disjunction. From then on it was all
difference.
With
Kassel it was back to the ' 60s - sort of.
The crusty surfaces and
throw down, full arm gestures expressed the expansive,
guilt free,
pre-post modernist optimism of an earlier period in Australian art when
painting was more a test of gestural bravura and a public subscription
to masculine
earthy values. These images are cool and easy on the
eye. Hard not to like even
though some threatened to metamorphose into
Rolf Harris television murals.
Best work "Native Dancers" but l'll work
on "Is This Whyalla?".
Warren Smith was upstairs
and downstairs and
outside as well.
And everytime another work came into view a new artist
appeared. The artist may
be cutting a figure as media man, plunging
boldly into different materials and
methods of forming and fabricating
to demonstrate versatility perhaps or to simply,
as is sometimes
described, 'explore options'. Karma-bandhana had presence and a
satisfying resolution of materials and forms absent in other works
notably
The Mediator which just looked plain confused about its
appearance.
JN