Last part -- with a last paragraph [ommitted] of generalities about NZ modernism. [I don't think that I would write like this now].
The originality in Rita Angus's painting is her pushing her way via oriental painting and religion [?] into a questioning of appearances, a reconstruction of them follows in which they become silhouette-signs of objects, that is, figures. This is why she is a singularly important painter for others in New Zealand, as testified by the recurrence of the technique and its very varied adaptations and modifications in the 1960s by Don Binney, by Robin White and by richard Killeen. As will be seen [in an intended future text] it is one very strong strand in New Zealand art that turns on a kind of pictorial semiotics, painting as signs. It is one vartiant on the continued search for a means of sending messages in paintings, using it as a means of communication. One constant is the belief that communication is exactly what is missing in New Zealand: in spite of the proximities, the muteness, and the inarticulateness continues.
The last paragraph sketches lightly a possible reading of various other artists in similar terms: Woollaston, Lois White, John Weeks, Eric Lee-Johnson.
This is my first time i visit here. I discovered a lot of interesting things within your blog especially its discussion.
Posted by: Daniel Smith | February 11, 2012 at 06:50 PM