|
Revealing, Concealing: works on paper
by Max Podstolski Review by Wayne Lorimer, CoCA [Centre of Contemporary Art magazine] no. 3, January March 1997 Anyone with an eye for the graphical, and an interest in art history, would have found something to enjoy in Max Podstolski's show at the Salamander Gallery. As soon as you entered the exhibition the bold colours, crisp lines and art-historical allusions flung themselves off the wall to greet you, creating a very friendly and upbeat atmosphere. "Revealing, Concealing" was exactly that, a show that dealt with what it means to reveal ourselves gradually, to family, friends and society. In looking at these issues, Podstolski used the familiar signs and symbols from art history and ancient myth; the mask, sun and moon, snakes and birds, earth and sky, life and death. The bold use of these symbols, along with the overall patterning of the works, was very tribal and it's an effect that the artist purposefully set out to achieve. Paintings like Birdwoman and Snakeman looked at the very core of our nature; the primitive, mythical and deep-rooted cult of the demigod. He was helped in this respect by appealing to the canons of early modernism, and the references to Picasso, Miro, Lipchitz and especially Paul Klee, were particularly evident. Some of the most impressive paintings in the show (such as Untitled 1992 and I Advance Masked) owed a great deal to the surrealist qualities of Paul Klee, and worked all the better for it. Attempts at a more painterly Picasso-like cubism, as in Couple, didn't really come off quite as convincingly as the more graphically intense images. Podstolski is certainly at his best when the work is bold, the colours bright, and the line precise. But by using these western art icons and then fusing them with a strong tribal feel, he also ran the risk of being branded an appropriator, stealing imagery from other cultures to give the work a kind of quasi-primitiveness. Yet you only had to talk to Max Podstolski for a few minutes to realise that the symbolism he uses (especially that of the mask), and the aboriginal quality of the patterning in works such as Revealing and Concealing is a very genuine response from an artist who has a strong graphic sensibility and who feels an affinity with this means of expression. It is a back-to-basics, universal kind of attitude to art, using vibrant colours that appeal, and bold lines that represent in a very simple and accessible way. We all show ourselves using different guises in our private and public lives, wearing different masks for different occasions. It was this dichotomy of experiences that Max Podstolski revealed, and concealed, in his latest show.
|