CELEBRATE COLOUR
POLYNESIA. A combined exhibition of paintings by Cathy Layzell and Paul Senyol. At Salon 91 Until June 20 June. DANNY SHORKEND reviews
THIS collaborative exhibition of paintings at Salon 91 on Kloof Street is a positive celebration of colour. There is a sense that one feels submerged in a “fish tank”. Surrounded by corals, webs of colour formations, curiosities that stir one in memory… Yet the way this combination is achieved is by a distinct aesthetic predilection. So that meaning or a sensible duo is as result of – at the same time – differences.
And yet it is in that very difference that a language is formed; the meaning of a sign is dependent on other signs within the signifying system. This means according to de Saussure “in language there are only differences without positive terms”. And yet in that realisation, the possibility for collaboration (and the two had met and wanted to work together already seven years ago) produces something new, or different. That is, in forming a language that leads to movement, growth, diversity and meaning. Yet for all that it is a meaning that as Derrida explains in his notion of difference – the continual “play” of an endless chain of signifiers that refer to each other – such that the signified falls away. This lack of being able to grasp reality, a correspondence between sign and referent should not leave one in despair. While art may be difficult to define, an aesthetic attitude at least sees in the continual “play”, a pattern.
Layzell’s work is euphoric on impact. Wild assertive colours, soft ambient spaces and aboriginal-like dots and lines that go into and emerge from the surface. In her Polynesia series what I particularly liked is that her fish or plants that are but flickers of colour fill a certain region of colour and then continue into another colour. When this happens its own value changes in the context of the new arena (colour mass) it finds itself in. This is roughly what Wittgenstein perhaps meant in his idea that the meaning of a word is given in its use, that is the role it plays in a given context. But the colours are luscious, sensuous marks that are somewhat wild, but skilfully ordered at the same time.
She works with oil on canvas and her colours suggest the sea, the waters that surround our planet – and yet one sees it not, being but terrestrial. Layzell sees it or imagines it as she has an avid love and interest in gardens. She has recreated that on canvas, the soil becomes the sea and the ground deep below – the well of unconscious thought, accessing what lays hidden. This is a perilous journey, so thank goodness her paintings delight the eye and gesture to a harmony among disparate parts.
Her connection to Matisse is evident in the lyrical dance of colour and a desire for order and cohesion; my speculation is that there is a search for far-away Islands with distinct cultures in order to find balance, harmony and peace among diverse cultures (a balance many modernist artists, such as Gauguin, searched for). That is not to say there is not a struggle between parts of the paintings or rather that we cannot be sure of its referent: that is the power of chaos. Paul Senyol then sees this dichotomy he too feels.
Senyol’s work draws from diverse interests both popular and fine, should we make that distinction in the first place. Either way, that is not important, for these mixed media works on wood are lovely plant-like forms that link with Layzell’s work. Though rather more linear, a use of various shades of black, perhaps more earthy which is not to say lacking in an electric, energetic, one might say atomic interplay. At the same time, the work is child-like in the most positive and cultivated sense – in ways that Matisse, Miro and Twombly sought.
I emerged from the “fish tank” somewhat elevated and invigorated. Although postmodern times may appear to be a mixture that does not produce an interrelationship of harmony, there is nevertheless a movement of sorts that venture to portray life as meaningful – as colourful – a spirit of exuberance that may be physically embodied.
Simultaneously, the aestheticisation of life ought to be done with caution and critique. The creative oscillation between these polarities promises a post post modernism.
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