French influence in Wicks' work
Art review by David Cox

SHOWING at the Design Arts Centre are two exhibitions of paintings — by Arthur Wicks and Kenith Willes.

Mr. Wicks is recently returned from studies in Paris. french love of craft has in­fluenced. his work, particu­larly in his etchings and silk screen prints.
Several of his large, hard-edge works are shaped triangular canvases, concave surfaces — one, "Vortex," is free-standing painted sculpture.
A recurring theme in the show is that of man in space.

Round shapes moving to­wards the picture centre seem to float at the point of touching or drawing away.
These pictures have a delicate sensuality, and, in my mind, comparisons are drawn between the tentative, approach of docking space modules and the approach of Earth-bound elements globules of water or human to human.
His themes seemed best. stated in smaller scale and sensitive medium of his etchings.
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Kenith Willes Is a landscape painter. Light and at- mosphere intrigue him.. In fact in many paintings I think atmosphere has, been his undoing,
His night-time pictures seem a little too contrived, too sweet in color, while in several harsher hotter landscapes, his colors  are set against each other suc- cessfully.
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The painters on show at the Reid Gallery, belong to a close-knit group, and all have been students of the painter Moriarty.
Their separate departures are interesting — the sensuality in the work of Paul Memmott, the force of Robert Morris, the meticulous composition of Greville Patterson and Leonard Robb's subtle suggestion of movements in his painting.
In the same gallery, Rex Coleman's sculptural pots; grouped like something built by Druids, seem to cry out for individual settings in which to stand.
It is within groups of young painters such as these with similar ideals that movements  and schools of painting are likely to be formed.

 

Courier Mail Brisbane 6 November 1969