Greenhills is a fairly well respected commercial Gallery in North Adelaide.
It is housed within a stately heritage building which once upon a time served as an inn.
The quality of artists shown at Greenhills varies from time to time. I recently checked out the work of Ben Stack and Michael Lindscott, and I must say I was not thoroughly impressed.
Stack's work was there in parts. Consisting of fairly bleary coloured abstracts.
I would have little time for this sort of work were it not for Stacks employment of shadowing to achieve a tromp l'oeil effect whereby the abstract clumps of jarring impasto seem to levitate from the canvass.
For the most part this merely lifts Stack's work out of the complete rubbish pile, and at times achieves little more than novelty, however in the case of the work entitled "And then .... So clear" a really lovely effect was achieved.
This work stood out completely from the others and was reminiscent of an abstract landscape, as opposed to happy pants which was the prevailing aesthetic for the other works on show.
The entire work appeared much more considered and the tonal and colour relationships more harmonious. The levetatiting impasto trick, although still present, was much more subtle, thus becoming more of a feature than a novelty and allowing the work to stand on its own.
Lindscott's work consisted of washed out poorly drawn photographic compositions with little consideration of colour or tone.
Whilst the subject matter was at times interesting, technical competence was clearly an issue inhibiting the artists expressive possibilities. An instance, where this played to Lindscott's advantage, however, was the work "At night there are lights by the river."
This moody work captures beautifully the essence and ambiance of it's subject matter and the dimly lit lighting scenario caters well to the washed out appearance of Lindscott's work.
Less successful was "Pink Top and Jeans," where Lindscott's inability to handle colour, tone and the human form, and his reliance upon photographic reference material were truly evident. read more