Whoops of colour and the whisper of secrets

By T.J. McNAMARA

Some paintings shout, some whisper. In the little gallery enclave in Newmarket, the shout and the whisper are just around the corner from each other.

At the Studio of Contemporary Art in Kingdom St until March 11, Romanian artist Cristina Popovici has filled the gallery to overflowing with her big, exuberant, shouting paintings.

The works hover between action and figure painting. The most characteristic of them have featureless figures against a background of paint that is dripped, splashed and spread across big canvases.

Within the figures there are also innumerable painting incidents where the paint is laid on in thick textures, rubbed back and painted again and again.

The splashes of bright colour are like whoops of joy. There is a real sense of energy and delight as one colour smacks up against another.

There are some works that abandon the figures and become completely abstract, but even in these works the flow of inventive ideas of ways to apply paint never ceases.

The most extreme of these abstract paintings is Pulsation, which is nine squares of PVC with each square stretched to a ridge by a form underneath it. The ridge allows the paint splashed on it to run and flow down each side in a way that would mimic natural processes if the background were not a vivid chemical orange.

This is purely decorative art. It could be characterised as foyer art. It would fill a big wall in a colourful way and the people who passed it every day would always be finding something they had not seen before, but they would not be stimulated into deep thought or emotional response.

The works with figures, which are often referred to in terms of a city called Artemenpolis, have more substance, although the colour is still very strident with a great deal of accent on red and blue.

The function of the figures in these works is to provide a connecting rhythm that tugs the works together and suggests a drama behind the action painting. The figures are shapes without characterisation and are sometimes cutouts collaged on to the canvas.

The idea of drama is reinforced by titles such as Looking for Your Own Shadow or Lovers and their Beloved Projections. But the real drama lies not in the interaction between the figures but in the interaction between the painter, the canvas and the act of painting.

The colours are swirled on with tremendous brio, but ultimately that is all there is. The paintings are vast but not deep.

Around the corner in Morgan St at the Anna Bibby Gallery, until March 19, the still, quiet paintings of Emily Wolfe whisper secrets to you.

They are muted, quiet and beautifully painted in oil on linen, with here and there details in pencil. They create a special world, a world seen through a window.

The real subject of the paintings is not just the exquisitely painted curtains that veil the windows but the sense that these curtains are metaphors for a certain kind of experience.

We are constantly aware of the presence of the person looking through the window and the muslin veil of the curtain.

A door has two functions: it lets people in and it lets people out. A window is similar. It lets people see out and in, but it is more subtle than a door. We hang curtains so people cannot see in, and when we look out we have to peep between the folds. And the folds are important in these paintings. They emphasise the sense of seclusion, purdah, isolation, of seeing through a glass darkly.

The paintings are all similar but have delicate changes of mood. The secretive mood may be tinged with eroticism, as in the delicate pink of Sunset, where the lace edges of the curtain which frame the delicate opening are like labia and what is beyond is secret and only dimly perceived.

The world beyond the lacy patterns of these curtains is only hinted at, but the hints suggest church towers and ecclesiastical power, or office towers and the power of authority, or apartment blocks and a multiplicity of unknown people.

Whatever is beyond the window is veiled from the person on the viewer's side. At times this can be quite frightening, as in Out in the Cold, where there is a dark space between an opaque and a transparent curtain.

There are only five works and they all sold quickly, which frees visitors to the gallery to enjoy and be moved by them entirely for their own sake.

Cristina Popovici's painting says: "This is me, the exuberant painter; see how I can paint." Emily Wolfe's work says: "This is you; see where you are."

There are two other galleries nearby. At Morgan St Gallery you can see the exact, colourful delineation of hibiscus by Sylvia Marsters, until March 12.

The Pacific also features largely in the group show at Whitespace, until March 13, with potent prints called China Today by Josephine Do.