Several stalwart practitioners of the fine art of oil painting have substantial exhibitions this week. The most spectacular are the paintings of Karl Maughan whose work is spread over the two sites of the Gow Langsford galleries. The works exude confidence in the qualities of paint and the artist's virtuoso expressive power in handling it.His format is well-defined. He paints luxuriant bushy landscape gardens filled with vividly flowering shrubs such as rhododendrons and camellias backed by green leafage. There is some innovation in this show called Long View, with paths frequently leading into the depths of the garden and glimpses of sky.
Distant sky and pale mountains are part of the impressively large Marchent Ridge, with a grassy path alongside a slope, at one point vividly lit by bright sunshine. It contrasts well with the masses of bright colour convincingly portrayed in the artist's rhythmic thick brushwork that moulds individual flowers in the foreground. The pale blue ridge in the background effectively conveys distance, although the hills lack even a hint of form.
Given that the subject is commonplace it is the brushwork and colour that are the most fascinating parts of these images. The wide brushstrokes are applied thickly, with an unerring unifying purpose that is intriguing to see close up or admire at a distance. It never really falters except, perhaps, in a formless flat area at the top of one of the smaller paintings, Lucas Creek.
The singing colour is intense and very high-key. The Kitchener St gallery has two impressive screen-printed images on display. In these, although the composition remains the same, the process allows arbitrary changes in some foreground colour. In these prints the exciting surface is lost but the changes emphasise the consciously composed nature of the works. The reality of place is the inspiration: colour and the arrangement of it is under the artist's control and a unifying factor that makes these highly approachable works paintings far beyond simple illustration.
