Art seen

<i>Humphrey Colefax's Gasworks,,</i> by Barry Brickell
<i>Humphrey Colefax's Gasworks,,</i> by Barry Brickell
''A hot retort'', Barry Brickell (Brett McDowell Gallery)

Potter, engineer, eccentric and national treasure, Barry Brickell has come to Dunedin to help commemorate the 150th anniversary of the city's gasworks with a welcome display of artefacts at the Brett McDowell Gallery.

Brickell has long loved the visceral nature of the mechanics and engineering of industry, and in this exhibition glories in the history, sights, and smells of gas production. He presents a series of impressive ceramic works, the highlight of which is a smoke-belching clay retort furnace. This work, which at the exhibition's opening was steadily stoked with shavings of manuka wood by its creator, is both a paean to an obsolescing industry and simultaneously a nice inversion and subversion of the ceramic-making process, with the kiln within the pot, rather than the usual reversal of that situation.

Alongside this miniature firehouse is another internally lit work, a model of Humphrey Colefax's Gasworks. Nearby a fine ceramic mural of the Dunedin Gasworks effectively sums up the history of the local plant, and several smaller tableaux depicting scenes from the gas worker's daily grind effectively capture the mood and working of the industry.

The exhibition is completed by three ink and watercolour works by John Madden, their grimy and bold images excellently complementing the master potter's creations.


<i>Choirs of Etropedia, part IV,</i> by Andy Leleisi'uao
<i>Choirs of Etropedia, part IV,</i> by Andy Leleisi'uao
''The choirs of Lupotea'', Andy Leleisi'uao (Milford Gallery)

If there is a young New Zealand artist who has successfully devised his own language of symbol in his work, then that artist must be Andy Leleisi'uao.

The artist has created a dense, challenging, idiosyncratic art with his layered depictions of arcane interactions. His friezes (for although the canvases are small in scale, they have the epic quality of wall murals) draw influence from the artist's own Samoan background and also from classical antiquities. The silhouetted depictions have something of the dynamic air of Greek or Etruscan pottery designs, and the mysterious hidden language of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Simultaneously there are echoes of the netherworlds of Bosch's proto-surrealist imagination. Like Bosch's Garden of earthly delights there is a hinted narrative of demigods and demons, and their interactions with mortal humans.

Unlike many of the artist's earlier canvases, colour plays a strong role in the latest exhibition. A distinct hierarchy is created through the use of different hues for the different stratifications of each piece. The actions no longer take place on a stark white plain, but characters now toil and play within their own harsh heavens and hells. The resulting works are fascinating and tantalising glimpses of a personal mythology on to which we can only impose our own interpretations.


<i>Takahe,</i> by Sarah Freiburger
<i>Takahe,</i> by Sarah Freiburger
''Treasured land'', Sarah Freiburger (Mint Gallery)

AN exhibition at Mint Gallery shows two sides of the work of artist Sarah Freiburger. The artist, who is both a painter and illustrator, is presenting a series of acrylic paintings which focus on two distinct aspects of New Zealand nature.

In one group of works, the emphasis is on portraits of New Zealand bird life. These close-cropped images successfully capture both the life and - more clearly - the personalities of these creatures. In paintings such as the low-key Kakapo: Trevor and the bright, dominating features of Takahe, the birds take and seemingly demand centre stage. The paintings are fine work, and capture the soul of the avians very nicely.

While the birds are precisely depicted, the other series of works, showing the New Zealand landscape, has a softer, more stylised edge. This does not detract from them, but adds a faint air of magic realism to the scenes. The panoramic canvases effectively capture the spirit of the land in much the same way as the inner personalities of the birds are revealed. Sticky folds of hills and still waters sit under deep wide-angle skies and honeyed sunshine in these richly coloured images of the Otago landscape.


 

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