DISAPPEARING PAINTING A painting that looks so real that some people can't see it, is a feature of an exhibition by Queensland Film and Dram a Centre Artist-in-Residence Ray Beattie. In the Library Foyer at Griffith University, students and passers-by can be seen playing guessing games about which elements of the painting are real objects, which are painted acrylic on canvas. This style of illustrative art has an element of surprise and a sense of magic and virtuosity akin to the transmutation of materials of the medieval alchemists. Onlookers ·hanker after the secret. Another piece in this vein is a sculpture produced by Mr. Beattie during his residency in Brisbane. Titled "Homage to Mareel Tutenkamen Duchamp", it is a shining chrome motorbike wheel on a stand. Like all of Mr. Beattie's art it portrays opposing aspects of beauty and brutality, of tradition and up-to-the-minute modernity. The wheel is a piece of contemporary industrial design which relates to earlier wheels in few respects except in its roundness. "A sinister aspect is hidden behind a veneer of beauty",says Mr. Beattie, "Think of how many parents wait up at night worrying about their children's involvement with the speed and violence associated with bikie culture." In addition to the work Mr. Beattie has produced during his stay in Queensland, the show includes an interesting retrospective of his work over the past five years. qighly coloured, detailed and masterly still-life prints give way to serene one-colour soft-ground etchings of domestic tools and utensils which look like lithographs or crayon drawings. Montaged photographs taken during his period of national service in Vietnam and a recent visit to his war-tom homeland of Northern Ireland stand beside screenprinted and etched trad itional style illustrations of gridded organic forms which pay tribute to the modem sciences of archeology and biology. The exhibition which is part of the artist-in-residence program sponsored by the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council,is open to the public and will be on show at Griffith University from 31 October to 21 November weekdays from 9am - 8pm and Saturdays from 12pm - 5pm. The work can be seen in the University's Central Theatres Foyer, Library Foyer and adjacent Humanities Building. For further information phone Margriet Bonnin 275 7414.
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