FrizzPopp II returns with a series of paintings from Dick Frizzell ‘Water Works’ and a studio installation from Martin Poppelwell - paintings, works on paper, diagrams and pottery.
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The artists have consistently been in conversation about each others practice. For this show together circumstances meant that the planned collaboration wasn’t going to happen. Dick decided he wanted to build a series of ‘found images’ from his collection of old cartoons and this led to a discussion about the dynamics of narrative. This left martin continuing his series using Samuel Beckett’s early trilogy of novels as a kind of tragi/comic diagram for his drawings / paintings. As it has ended up Frizzell’s work runs horizontally and Poppelwell’s sits vertically. It is the first time each artist has shown new work in the gallery.

For this year’s Frizz/Popp Show I wanted to reflect Martin’s ceramic endeavours with the theme ‘Earth, Fire and Water’…represented in the comic book style of my early Phantom paintings.

I pored through my collection of dogeared American comics…only to come up with one ‘Fire and Water’ image ( Explosion at Sea) and had to subsequently reel in my ambitions. ‘Earth’ being way too amorphous a thing to represent, I decided to concentrate on ‘Water’. Hence the aquatic link in all fifteen images. As organising principles go, it’s a slender one but it did the business.

To make the frieze presentation read as consistently as possible I’ve resorted to a combination of painting and silkscreening on each canvas. It’s been an interesting exercise with the production divided between my studio and the Artrite silkscreen studios out at Onehunga.

I’d also like to thank Dean Tercel at Studio Art Supplies for the brilliant job he did of getting these tricky beasts onto their individual stretchers.

Dick Frizzell, 2021