young

John Young Unstable Cultures Sherman Galleries Goodhope,
25 October - 4 December 2002
Amanda Marburg Paintings Rex Irwin Art Dealer, 5 - 23 November 2002

Review by David Eastwood

Photorealism occupied a curious position in twentieth century art. Primarily an American style of painting which emerged in the late sixties and seventies, it has faced criticism for lacking intellectual merit or emotional investment, yet achieved popularity amongst viewers impressed by the faithful reproduction of photographic imagery. It is a style of detached indifference: every minute section of the image is treated democratically, emulating the photograph's mechanical origins and denying the trace of the hand. Photorealism by its very nature calls upon participants to work in the same style with only subject matter to differentiate their individual oeuvres.

In a sense, it was a dead-end movement since the aims and objectives were clearly set out and logically met by the execution of the painting. Chuck Close rose to prominence painting in this style but has remained relevant and interesting by continually exploring new approaches to technique and media and setting himself new criteria while remaining faithful to the subject matter he first began using in 1967. Many other painters from this period who chose to adhere to a Photorealistic approach to technique were doomed to repeat themselves, churning out variations of their chosen subject.

Yet the careful rendering of photographic imagery continues to be a strategy of contemporary artists. Painters who have recently employed the techniques of Photorealism have tended to avoid simply copying straightforward snapshots in favour of ironic interrogations of the picture, maintaining a critical distance from their subject. The authority of the image is called into question and its connection with the viewer is disrupted via the artist's ironic intervention. Gerhard Richter's smudged realism set a precedent here. There is an undermining of the illusion rarely seen in the original incarnation of the style in the sixties.

John Young's fragmented pictures combining smoothly rendered oil paintings amidst digital prints on canvas possess this ironic attitude. Unstable Cultures, Young's most recent show, contains juxtaposed images as varied as nude figures, flowers, sentimental landscapes and toy dinosaurs. With little or no connection between subjects or compositional placement - some are upright, some positioned side-on, others upside down - there is little to entice the viewer to analyse each image's specific meaning. Rather, the images operate as signs, representing an idea of painting.

Descended from Photorealism, the denial of the artist's touch is taken further here. Not only are the images copied from photographs, Young employed studio assistants to work on the painted areas. In conjunction with the digital prints which make up the background areas around the paintings, there remains little, if any, evidence of the artist's involvement in the physical making of his work.

This exhibition follows the "double ground" format of earlier work, emphasising a disjunctive relationship between paint and digital print. In the past Young has used this format to explore cultural identity and contrast historical, Oriental scenes in the digitally printed background of Young's "western" paintings of flowers, landscapes, nudes, etc. Most of the digital images in the current body of work, however, are computer generated abstract designs. The disconnectedness of the compositions, images and media within each painting distracts rather than engages. These paintings emphasise a conceptual process, but the images are so alienating it is difficult to care about the work at all. They are sterile and lifeless in technique and mood.

Painter Amanda Marburg is one of Young's studio assistants. Unsurprisingly, Marburg's paintings share strong stylistic similarities with the sections of oil painting within Young's work. Marburg's exhibition, coinciding with Young's, provided an interesting opportunity for comparison.

Marburg's technique is so specific and controlled it is important to discuss. The trace of any brushwork has been effectively erased, each painting refined to a flat, even surface. Noteworthy, too, is the absence of any hard edge in the images. The artist has avoided the sharp definition of forms, instead locating her subjects within varying levels of soft focus as if seen through a Vaseline smeared lens. The wrinkles are ironed out along with any sense of painterly drama.

One could infer a tentativeness on the part of the painter, a reluctance to take risks with the handling of paint. While this kind of careful, detailed style is often the very thing which prompts viewers to marvel at the artist's technique, it can become too easy for the painter, promoting complacency. It can be a comfort zone for the painter who fears the open-endedness and less controllable nature of a more intuitive process of painting. When the image and surface quality are predetermined to a finite degree as in Photorealism, the process of painting can become a mere process of mindless copying.

As if to redress the imbalance of austerity of technique, the subjects of Marburg's paintings are wonky, handmade Plasticine figures which the artist constructs as models for the finished work. These models often depict an absurd or humorous scene such as the lion stepping up to the microphone in the studio of The Voice of MGM. The use of Plasticine and the offbeat ideas lend it an air of innocence and wit that is very appealing. There is an incongruity between the painter's style and her subject, but, as it turns out, this is its main strength.

The question that remains is, what purpose does this process of painting serve which could not be served by the photograph alone? The answer, in Marburg's case, is a valid one, and seems to lie in the idea of mediated experience. Separate stages of modelling the clay, photographing the scene, and transcribing the photograph into paint contribute to the process of these paintings. Along the path from concept to painting, distortions such as scale, focus, etc. are allowed to come into play, contributing to the sense of disorientation present in many of the paintings.

The success of these paintings depends largely on the viewer's surprise at the contradictions between the small scale and crudeness of the clay and the large scale and refinement of the paintings. Marburg gently teases with the tension between her finely rendered technique and the potential of her materials for luscious impasto texture. Similar to Glenn Brown's interpretations of Frank Auerbach paintings, Marburg's Painting, for example, depicts a thickly textured, abstract splattering of clay reduced to a smooth surface of finely detailed paint.

Self Portrait with Plasticine nose and glasses is one of two paintings in the show to incorporate human figures. They maintain a sense of fun but are less successful because the intriguing otherworldliness of the other paintings is lacking, and weaknesses such as a sickly yellow tint to the skin become apparent. The Plasticine characters in Far Gone, Marion and Me and Rabbit possess a simplicity and expressiveness which is far more satisfying than the human contenders. In contrast to John Young, Amanda Marburg's best work is optimistic and inviting. Her exhibition attests to a cautious painter toying with illusion without allowing cynicism to anaesthetise the life out of her work.

David Eastwood is an artist. He is represented by Robin Gibson Gallery.