Which painting is the print?

One of the best things about Mr. Arthur Wicks's exhibition of paintings and "structures" at the Armidale Art Gallery is that it is small. One becomes chary of artists with a massive output:: that inspiration should  be so accessible !

Mr. Wicks's predilection for the print process is reflected in his paintings, so that there is little change in tactile values in moving from one medium to the other.
The paintings have a "hard-edge" quality and flat anonymous surfaces that make them almost indistinguishable from the prints.
A case in point is the Orbital III print which is simply  the painting Orbital II writ large.
It is conceivable that Mr. Wicks's "structures" are an attempt to intro­duce this tactile sense into his painting.
Again, the striving for anonymous surfaces and the blurring of the line between solid "sculpture", in the traditional sense, and painted structures has been one of the more notable trends in art in recent years, and Mr.Wicks may be demon­strating in his work just this lack of any clear line of demarcation between any of the plastic arts.

The latest obsession with optical shock tactics in art has been demonstrated in "Slice" and "Wall Sentinel". Of these two elongated works the second is the more successful, with its visual overtones. If "Slice" on the other hand was intended  to convey the neurasthenic qualities of a Newman-like pulsating line, it did not succeed, and merely appeared to be poorly executed.

A far more stimulating optical and emotional ef­fect has been obtained in "Blue expandable" with its cleverly implied perspective. In a sense, there is far more "structural" quality in this work than in the three-dimensional forms "Vortex" and The space themes give way in the charming and humorous "Siesta," while "Pink Gothic" has an. en­ormously emotive effect with its subtle colour and tonal values.
The exhibition as a whole shows Mr. Wicks as a print-maker extra­ordinary, and as a painter who is either unable, or for his own aesthetic purpose, unwilling to exploit this medium except as an extension of the print­making technique.

In opening the exhibi­tion, the principal of Mary White College, Mrs.  M. Yeates, said that Armi­dalians should be grate­ful to the City Council for its initiative in bringing this kind of exhibition to the Art Gallery, as a centre like this tended to become isolated cultural­ly.
Describing Mr. Wicks as a "very remarkable young man," Mrs. Yeates noted that he held both science and arts degrees, and was at present employed as a public servant and working part-time in art.
He had been represented in Australian Print Council exhibitions and in the galleries of N.S.W. and Canberra, and was re­cently awarded a scholar­ship by the French Government to study print­making in Paris for 10 months. While there he had the distinction of be­ing the first Australian artist to be given given the occupancy of the Power Institute studio in Paris.

The monthly meeting of the Art Society on Saturday, July 19, at the Gallery will introduce a panel discussion on why we feel the necessity to apply to art labels like abstract, impressionistic, contemreview of my exhibition at the Armidale art Gallery in February 1969 by Margaret was published in the local Armadale newspaper. It was in fact a precursor to the Design Arts Centre exhibition in Brisbane in Brisbane a few months later. The contents of these exhibitions (and their selling price as at 1969) can be viewed here.porary and traditional.

MARGARET.
Armidale, 1969