SMAC ART: Retro art shapes up

A couple were admiring Trevor Coleman's majestic Totem , in all of its 1973 geometric glory and confrontational colour. It singularly annexes an entire white wall in the elegant space of SMAC's sala grande . "The Spur, perhaps?" one of them said.

The visitorwas only half-joking. For a reviewer on a serious mission, one with a fair amount of knowledge of and respect for the art in question, the reference to steakhouse decor was a shock. And yet .

These glorious works, going under the pithy generic of "hard-edge geometric abstraction", make superb and stylish statements. Possibly not quite the now 78-year-old artist's intention in those heady hippy days of the 1960s and 1970s when he was so inspired, but true nevertheless.

Probably more minimalist lounge than "injun" steakhouse interior, Coleman's bold paintings, with their wayward shapes and pernickety pursuit of geometry - many with a dash of op art - have a remarkable spatial presence after all these years. Dynamic decor wouldn't be a defective description.

Perhaps it is nostalgia - during this era of art's overbearing social conscience and moneyed motivation - but these lovely paintings (and other stuff, such as fine silkscreen prints) speak of a kind of naive honesty of art's purpose.

The SMAC Art Gallery, or, in its original, somewhat oxymoronic name Stellenbosch Modern And Contemporary Art Gallery, has made it a mission to present art from the past that hasn't been cool for yonks.

The gallery was opened in the university town by the dashing Baylon Sandri in 2006, and "abstraction" is one of the tags it attaches to work by artists who have passed into the shadows of cultural correctness.

There have been three large group sessions.

Two years ago SMAC opened another gallery in central Cape Town, and Sandri, who comes from an art collecting family, has extended his dealership and curatorial sphere to the north and overseas.

Coleman's "abstractions" - hard-edge (a quirky term of its time, meaning solid planes of colour) and obsession with precise shapes and playful, optical psychedelics - are bookended in an exact parallel of international art trends of the time. And they are as delightful as the best of them from then.

Born from modernist theories about the artwork as object - "a painting is a painting is a painting" - with pop and op art on the horizon, this style negotiated public popularity, as is easy enough to now see. It placed art right in fashion.

The dynamics of Coleman's bold "un-natural" colours and his optical tricks with angles and dimensions celebrate in all manner and means the pleasure of seeing.

So it all makes perfect sense if a youthful contemporary visitor's mind turns instantly to bright interior design.

And it's not only that dashing Totem. There are fun teasing-the-eye things such as Three Blocks, Optical and Pink Squares - all indulging in optics and bold hit-the-spot flashes of acrylic colour. Don't miss those clever energised canvases that go by names such as Mapog, Interlock and Sygnos.

Not only smart decor from then, but brassy art for now.

• 'Trevor Coleman: Abstraction 1960-1977' is at the SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, until August 23. Call 021-887-3607