an excellent double

In their separate ways both Col Jordan and Mona Hessing are first-rate artists.
Jordan has jumped from a position-which, from the aesthetic point of view, could have been described as a tight corner and has landed in an area in which almost anything seems possible.
His art has suddenly opened out in the most astonishing way, the old constraints and poverties have-disappeared and in their place there is a lusciousneness and a richness of invention that one could hardly have predicted from the earlier evidence.
One basic theme runs through most of his paint­ings, drawings and sculp­ture — and that theme is smoke.
     Jordan converts the dischargevof pipes and chim­neys into linear patterns and harmonies of colour which must be numbered among the very few successful translations of' in­dustrial ugliness into aesthetically pleasing works of art.
Mona Hessing is no less successful in her conver­sion of hand spun wool, jute and wild silk into the most imaginative of wall hangings.
She has remarkarble
sensitivity to colour and texture, and these qualities, put to the service of her skill as a weaver, have re­sulted in some of the most original pleasing works of ar to have been shown in Sydney for- some time.
Some of them might be described more aptly as re­liefs or even as woven sculpture for they are sus­pended in space or projof from the wall, in hree dimensional way that de­nies them any association with tapestry.
* *
On the evidence of his present exhibition at the Rudy .Komon Gallery it seems clear that Frank Hdgkinson reached his peak as a. painter about 10 years ago.
Everything since then has represented a falling away from the remarkable quality he achieved in his paintings under the initial impact of the abstract ex­pressionist movement,
With the decay of that movement it seems as though Hodgkinson was left without a style con­genial to his temperament and palette.   Each exhibition since then has represented a casting ground for a new form that might offer him the same opportunities as those he seized upon so brilliant­ly a decade ago.  Unfortunately the present paintings must surely represent another dead end. Painting after painting strains to create a feeling of passionate conviction al­though they only succeed in leaving us with a sense of effort. The passion and conviction are missing. Hodgkinson is too good an artist to stay in the wilderness forever. Sooner or later he will surely strike form again, but he has not done so in this exhibition.
* * *

ARTHUR WICKS is a  new name in the Syd­ney art world.
His first exhibition at the Watters, Gallery reveals a refinement of taste that comes through with maximum effect in a series of seven very fine prints.
As a subtle colourist and as a scrupulous and knowledgeable craftsman he achieves effects that have something in common with those created by James Doolin.
They both prefer simple shapes as a framework for highly complex and very sophisticated colour transi­tions.
Wicks trained in Paris under Hayter, and this experience comes out in the elegance and finish of his prints. By comparison his larger paintings seem rougher and far less confident of themselves.
Even the best of paintings look as though they would have been more comfortable as prints—for is in the field of graphic arts that Wicks has some- thing of real value to offer.

Art Review
James Gleeson
The Sun  28 April 1971