Exhibitions Auckland

LEONARD BELL

IAN SCOTT  The Lattice Series

A year ago it seemed as if Petar Vuletic's gallery was closing down - a pity, since he had vigorously promoted some of the best abstract painting in New Zealand. But there's been a resurrection - the occasion marked by an excellent exhibition of Ian Scott's recent work, which appropriately enough represents a new direction, a new beginning for him too.

The exhibition was comprised of seven large paintings, most of them about five feet square: lattice paintings. With a couple of exceptions these are made up of horizontal-vertical grids with criss-crossing diagonals defined by a thin black line on either an unpainted canvas or a white ground. Interwoven with these lattices are bands or segments of colour - red, yellow, green, blue, and black.

That seems simple and uncomplicated; but the paintings aren't in fact as simple as they may immediately look. For instance the colour areas and the verticals, horizontals, and diagonals of the lattices are interwoven so that what is actually 'over' and what is actually 'under' is at times unclear. Take Lattice No. 19. At various points a black (if you read it as a band) crosses over a red which crosses over a blue which crosses over another blue which crosses over the black. Or in Lattice No.9 the vertical passes over the diagonal at one intersection, while at another the diagonal passes over the vertical. That is to say the 'crossovers' - if they are in fact crossovers - seem to give a sense of depth, yet the ambiguities, or 'ambiguities' rather, serve to stress the flatness of the paintings. So one can read these lattices mosaic-wise. This is most apparent in Lattice No. 19 which does not have a vertical-horizontal grid. It is presented as a fabric of diagonally disposed segments. Some people might find this too cluttered, but that is a matter of personal taste.

In other words Scott sets up some subtle tensions. How do we 'read' the images? In terms of flat pattern or layered space or both? The 'geometry' of the paintings is ungeometric. They are static yet dynamic - note the arrow shape in the corners of No. 19 - depending on the view you take. What you immediately take in as a whole is compromised on closer, more detailed inspection. These seemingly bland, neutral, and impersonal canvases are full of activity. They demand participation.

The colours are worth considering in this respect. They tend to be chalky. The blues, yellows, and greens have an almost sickly quality. They're certainly not pretty, decorative, or tasteful. Scott told me he couldn't afford anything else, but nevertheless you have to be bold to use colours in this way. These qualities of the colours can't be ignored. They counteract the impersonality of the monochrome grid, subverting the anonymity of the lattice. No-one else would have chosen colours like this.

Where will Scott go from here? You can be fairly sure it will be on to something different - as different maybe as these lattices are from the more spontaneous, less order roller stripe paintings of his previous one-man exhibition. Scott has always experimented. He's never played it safe. He's never slipped into complacency or remained static. The process, what can be done with paint, the business of applying paint to canvas are his central concerns. Deep philosophical intention, a mind always on the stretch for a moral, will not necessarily make a fine picture (an English painter, Ford Madox Brown, said that in 1865). Nor will a concern for trees or birds. First and foremost paintings must work as paintings. Scott's do. For those prepared to look the lattice paintings provide a series of delights.