Paintings 2003 - 2004
21 June - 16 July 2005

The repetition of a structure is a means of investigating form and, by extension, meaning. In the oeuvre of Milan Mrkusich this kind of repetition and investigation is an essential part of his practice and is undertaken also in his most recent exhibition of paintings from 2003 and 2004 at the Sue Crockford Gallery.

The exhibition consists of eight works each employing a dominating field of colour with contrasting horizontal bars and bands, a number of which are punctuated by a square or rectangle. Spatial mitigations between field and form endow these painting with tensions and movements that engage the eye in an ongoing game of subtle visual adjustments. For example, consider the space surrounding the three edges of the upper square and the bottom bar in works such as Painting Violet 2003. Such allowance of space gives these forms the effect of floating free from the central field while at the same time their placement within a containing field (for the square it is the upper band, for the bar it is the central field of colour) restrains and intensifies them.

For many who view these paintings, the meanings investigated through these repeated forms relate to the structure and system of painting itself: meanings of shape, of edge and of surface. These meanings accord, of course, with many elements of Mrkusich's process of painting. Consider Two Part Painting Achromatic Yellow 2004, the forms of which are constructed from preliminary sketches and are structured by an all-over underlying grid. The conscious planning of these forms and their systematic organisation appears to indicate an entirely mathematical approach to painting.

However, one element lies outside this structured system of creation. That element is found, of course, within the subtlety of surface nuances typical to so many of Mrkusich's works and present in all eight paintings exhibited here.  Formless and amorphous, these surfaces create an ambiguity within the seemingly objective process of creation. As such the repetition of form undertaken here can be seen as an investigation and promotion of meaning, which lies in part outside of the system and structure of painting. A meaning that is, accordingly, partly enigmatic and never absolute.

Born in Dargaville of Dalmatian descent, Mrkusich has devoted himself entirely to painting from the late 1950s, exhibiting throughout New Zealand and internationally in Australia, Asia, America and the United Kingdom. His major public commissions include the large work in coloured enamel on glass for the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa. In1997 he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to painting. In 2003 he was named one of ten Inaugural Living Icon Artists of New Zealand awarded by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.  
Chante St Clair Inglis