Art seen

"Concrete Chimera", (Salisbury Boutique Basement)

"Kaleidoscope search engine", Ted Whitaker
"Kaleidoscope search engine", Ted Whitaker
Dunedin's Fringe Festival has brought numerous art shows to the city, many of them brief, unexpected, and unusually located. One such is "Concrete Chimera", deep in a dark subterranean bunker in Bond St. Six artists have contributed experimental works to the display. 

The works form a claustrophobic circuit around the bunker's two rooms and connecting passageways. The main room contains two sets of projected videos, one abstract, the other containing both abstract and darkly surreal elements. Between these bookends a swing hangs from the ceiling upon which the viewer is requested to sit. The motion of the swing through the darkened space adds an unsettling motion to the displays, as if it is the projections that are moving around the room's walls.

A second room contains ripple projections playing on pools on the gallery floor. Nearby sits Ted Whitaker's arcane telescope-like kaleidoscope, its display comprising images of a computer desktop and open internet search engine. This work imitates the seemingly endless and addictive fountain of data and entertainment the internet provides.

The two rooms are connected by a narrow passage in which sits a dark installation, a red-lit hanging model sheep wrapped in cling film. Justin Spiers' work provokes us with its horror-film elements juxtaposing the familiar with the gruesome.

 

"Drawl", (140 George St)

'Self-portrait", Manu Berry
'Self-portrait", Manu Berry
While some group shows are in dim basements, others reach into the airy eaves. Drawl, above 140 George St, contains works by eight local artists, several of whom have their studios in rooms next to the exhibition space.

As the exhibition's name suggests, emphasis is on drawn works which, in the words of one of the artists, allows for a lighter, freer approach to the art. In some cases, the works can be seen as preliminary sketches, or simply as vibrant freeform pieces in which the moment is captured by a simple flow of graphite or ink on to paper.

This is not to say that the works lack finish.

Many of the pieces have been meticulously worked, notably Manu Berry's fine architectural studies and Philip Madill's heavily worked graphite pieces. Though black-and-white works predominate, Justin Balmain's small untitled series with their repetitive escalator images, each in shades of a different hue, break this pattern, as do Amelia Disspain's muted ink works.

A large dark work by Jo Robertson dominates the last room of the art space, which also contains a series of self-portraits by Manu Berry and an intriguing series of small, macabre works by James Robinson.

 

"The Moon Knows", (Glue Gallery)

"Moon Knows", February 2012, Mary McFarlane
"Moon Knows", February 2012, Mary McFarlane
Mary McFarlane's latest exhibition, at Glue Gallery, shows the artist still has the full moon in her soul.

McFarlane works employ antique and second-hand mirrors, which she treats to scar the original silvered surface before building up from this base with lacquer and materials such as silver and gold leaf.

The resulting works show a moon within, their silver/bronze circles floating in a sea of perfect brilliant black. The lacquer's impenetrable dark acts to counter the reflective brilliance of the circular icons; their subtly shifting metallic colours pin the black into its place.

The works are not specific, realistic representations of the moon, yet the shimmering patterns can easily be read as the maria and craters of our silent companion's surface.

The significance of a mirror as an analogy for the moon is poignant; so much of our art has sought the moon as an inspiration and it works a subtle physical and psychological charm on us all.

We are left to ponder the beauty of the art and also the beauty of both the moon itself and of the science which brings its secrets closer yet leaves it at a tantalising distance.

 

 

 

 

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