Art Seen

• "Castles from the Back Lot", Becky Richards (Blue Oyster Gallery)

One of Becky Richards Brick Groupings.
One of Becky Richards Brick Groupings.
The Blue Oyster is presenting an "un-collaboration". Installation artists Becky Richards and Barbara Smith, from Melbourne and Hamilton respectively, arrived in Dunedin posing unrelated exhibitions. They proceeded to carefully entwine their installations without any glimpse of merging them, and the result is a balance of contrasts. Richards, originally from Canterbury, has selected broken bricks from the historic Christchurch basilica, which was damaged by the earthquakes of 2010/11. The rubble is built up in groups upon the gallery floor, interspersed with grasses, pottery, driftwood, and fragments of glass; one would say "like little rock gardens" but they are disquieting. Perhaps it is the knowledge of the bricks' origins, or maybe it is the placement of humble earthenware, but there is an eeriness that one tends to find in museum displays: these are the silent remains of something that was once much bigger, emotionally and/or physically.

The choice to embrace the gallery's floor coincidentally exploits its colour by giving the impression the rocks are bound by a body of water; further, such heaviness below accentuates the two striking branches of driftwood which veer upward to the ceiling's lights. Indeed the whole exhibition is one of acute spatial awareness and a sharp attentiveness to visual connectivity. The beholder's satisfaction will emerge from alertness to that which is left unsaid.

• "A Diverse Cast", Barbara Smith (Blue Oyster Gallery)

Part of Barbara Smith's installation.
Part of Barbara Smith's installation.
In direct contrast to Richards' arrangements of natural objects is Smith's exhibition of manipulated and synthetic, perhaps more contemporary, materials. Smith has presented conceptual work that is very linear and minimalist in manifestation.

She has made multiple black metal frames, some of which stand tall, others of which lie horizontally upon the floor. Thin, transparent strips of resin fill, surround, or slide up and off the metal structures as if they have been granted life; or alternatively, sheets of coloured Perspex hang upon them and lean against the wall like disengaged paintings.

A visual balance has been generated by joining Smith and Richards' potentially oppositional exhibitions resulting in a space which - having been so vigilantly considered - is unusually unified.

Where Richards deals with weight, clusters and suggestions of earthiness, Smith interacts with light, lightness of form, and surface. Similarly, there is a sense of progress and impermanence present in Smith's work which serendipitously contrasts with the uncanny stillness and notions of (albeit broken) durability that Richards' works suggest. With this in mind, the abstract face of this exhibition means that ultimately, the viewer's interpretation is likely to be associational and multifaceted.

• "Caravaggisti Presents: Working In The Shadow", five Dunedin artists (A Gallery)

<i>Lemmy Klimister</i>, by Danny Brisbane.
<i>Lemmy Klimister</i>, by Danny Brisbane.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist of the 16th and 17th centuries. He was of great influence to the baroque period in art history and has been said to have put "the oscuro (shadows) into chiascuro".

Renowned in the art world for his psychological realism, dramatic use of lighting and more broadly for his "disorderly" lifestyle, Caravaggio had a reputation as something of a ruffian that has outlived him, making him the reference point for a group of male artists here.

Local artists Craig Freeborn, Danny Brisbane, Flynn Morris-Clark, James Colin Bellaney and Philip Madill are all either near-graduates, graduates, or masters of fine art respectively, and this exhibition is tied together by their mutual fixation on darker - that is, perceptively sceptical - realist themes. To say "realist" is not to suggest a stylistic trend. The works, with each artist presenting one or two pieces, range from Bellaney's ostensibly abstract expressionist method, Madill's punctilious, eerie (quasi-futurist) works in graphite and Freeborn's thrilling acrylic portrayal of dumpster-diving through to Morris-Clark's compelling, fleshy oil portraits and Brisbane's graphic renditions of pop-culture icons.

There is no lack of talent, energy, or originality among these artists and this exhibition reveals only a glimpse of their creative facility.

- Franky Strachan 

 

 

 

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