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Metro, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 April 2001 Frame by frameJames Powditch uses everyday objects to create his film-inspired art, writes VICTORIA HYNES James Powditch loves movies; so much that he builds mixed media constructions based on his favourite films. In his new exhibition Technicolor, he recreates cinematic frames with his wall relief sculptures, each employing a horizontal widescreen format. Powditch's eclectic background in set design and prop-making, architecture and film has contributed to his singular vision and particular process of art-making. The artist demonstrates as much passion for his materials as he does for his subject matter. He uses recycled objects and debris, found by scouting around his neighbourhood, for his assemblages. Most of the materials from this body of work come from his local 1950s fruitshop and butcher, which were recently closed and guttered. Old sheets of linoleum, formica benchtops, shop fittings and signs have all been rescued, cut and reassembled into visually arresting arrangements. As a result, the artworks and heavily textured and tactile; it is often hard to resist touching and running your hands over the weathered and worn materials. Assemblage-making is a popular, occasionally tired genre, but Powditch injects new life into the medium with his innovative interplay of form and subject. His rugged yet sophisticated compositions owe more to the influence of Rauschenberg than they do to Rosalie Gascoigne. The artist carefully and cleverly chooses his materials to suggest his thematic concerns. Often he construes a film literally – at other times his interpretations are more illusive. Old Man and the Sea I and II are both elegant abstractions as well as constructions that evoke a maritime theme; wooden slats appear like panels of old boats and driftwood washed up from the sea. Often the works are divided into three horizontal panels analogous to film stills. In Horse Soldiers, a horse and rider, cut out of formica, gallop towards the viewer, growing larger with each panel. Those who have seen Planet of the Apes won't forget the final scene featuring the fallen Statue of Liberty. Powditch emphasises this in his multi-panelled homily, with the statue's crown peeping over the edge of each picture frame. Days of Heaven was a languorous love story set in the deep rural heartland of the US. The artist suggests the expanse of the landscape in his simple yet evocative arrangement of timber blocks, with discoloured brown strips that conjure up wide open plains. Tora! Tora! Tora! comprises the severed half-moon of a battered dartboard set against a red background, like the rising sun of a Japanese flag. Some of the smaller quirky works such as Flip Flop (Don's Party II), with its well-used thong encased in glass can verge on gimmickry, but the artist avoids this through his subtlety of allusion and complexity in design. This film buff found delight in unscrambling the meaning of each artwork as much as I appreciated the mastery of its construction. This is an exhibition to be savoured. Where
Dickerson Gallery, 34 Queen Street Woollahra |