Art seen

"I am inspired by biblical references to the earth being stretched out like fabric, with patterns and folds like garments ... " is how Maria Kemp views her paintings of the landscape.

Kemp's work is presented in an exhibition titled "Artist in the Terminal" now showing in Dunedin International Airport, in which regional landscape typical of Otago and heartfelt images of life in Dunedin are presented.

In this latest exhibition, Kemp has produced a series of nine excellent oil and mixed media works which not only continue to show her love of Otago landforms but also her enthusiasm for full-length portraiture, seen in work such as Sons and Daughters 1.

This painting combines the two themes by placing her four young adult subjects, enjoying a romp on the beach, against the folded hills of Otago Peninsula.

Not only does Kemp excel at capturing the fluidity of the local environment through line and colour, but her faith frequently influencing her art is apparent by the biblical references inscribed in several of her paintings, particularly seen in work such as Rosescape 2 and in the title Sermon on the Mount, Life Saving 1.

Another component to Kemp's work is the way she has cut out sections and reassembled them into the painting as upside-down panels, reflecting and reinterpreting the scenes they depict, such as in her work Pillars.

• The Artist's Room is presenting works by three New Zealand landscape artists. Like Maria Kemp, Susan Webb excels at capturing the fluidity of the environment through broad, loose brushstrokes and an intense colour palette of ochre, blues and browns as shown in her imposing work, Stand alone 1, Queenstown V.

Her textured abstract oils record the hills and water that make up these Otago high-country landscapes. The unpredictable nature and drama of the weather and reaction to light create strong chiaroscuro, producing rich deep shadows and influencing the mood of her work.

Brian Strong's work is also distinctly New Zealand, inspired by the contrasting landscape of the headlands, beaches and waters of Tasman Bay and its plant and bird life.

These carefully executed oils emphasise light and changing weather, producing distinctive tonal contrasts. Strong's work makes use of collaged maps and printed images of the Treaty of Waitangi, obvious in work such as Chronicles of the Past, adding a cultural element.

Other work is painted on to paper resembling old-fashioned parchment.

JK Reed's watercolour medium and traditional landscape and street scenes create a pleasant contrast.

Although not so distinctly New Zealand, Reed pays tribute to well-known South Island localities using an impressionistic style to capture light and emphatic season changes.

His excellent watercolours are a snapshot of life, and indicate an interest in surrounding architecture, such as seen in Market Stall, Cathedral Square and the more rustic, pastoral charm of Fruitlands, Central Otago.

• Joanna Langford's landscapes are ambitious and imaginative, creating a dramatic entrance for visitors to the Hocken Gallery.

Langford's lightweight installations of towering plastic cloudscapes, bamboo-skewer scaffolds reaching skyward and ladders to nowhere push perceptions in unexpected directions.

The exhibition's title piece, Honey in the Rock, is a very large landscape made of thousands of small orange-dyed polystyrene balls, glued together into long shard-like shapes built up by overlapping layers into contours.

It is supported from above with nylon thread and thin sticks which descend to feet made from bamboo sticks. Langford's skeletal frame is a representation of Dunedin's Mount Cargill.

Its unnatural colour and skyward direction give hints to magical qualities hidden within the mountain. Golden clouds which hang above the rock's upper reaches, made from plastic inflated shopping bags, suggest honey deposits oozing from a crack in the rock.

The exhibition includes two other major installations by Langford - Baltic Wanderer and Reaching Out. All her work is charming and delicate.

Her imaginative projects persuade the viewer to explore the work, discovering minute and hidden possibilities. Miniature fences made from sewing needles linked with thread on her Honey in the Rock landscape are a good example of this.

Langford's projects look deliberately home-made and awkward. Perhaps this is a strategy to help direct our attention towards her creative and imaginary worlds.