Art seen: 27 October

Transcend the Mirror, by Tyler Kennedy Stent and Sophie-Claire Violette.

(The Artist’s Room)

Tyler Kennedy Stent has teamed up with cultural anthropologist Sophie-Claire Violette for an intriguing exhibition at The Artist’s Room.

The work on display is a continuation of the large iridescent portraits which the artist has been working on for some time, notably in the illustrations for the book Moireach. As with those works, the images are presented on textured canvases, with a bold use of negative space.

The current pieces are heavily influenced by Violette’s work on intersectional feminism — that is, situations in which the inequalities of women in a male-dominated society are further exacerbated by the woman’s status within a minority group, perhaps of ethnicity, disability or sexuality. Stent explores these situations within his art by means of an allegory in which a woman, Giselle, is born underwater and blind. Her air comes to her through a tube which is life-giving yet simultaneously parasitic, an unknowingly malevolent umbilical. Stent’s remarkable images of Giselle are inscribed with text by Violette, text which adds nuance to the works and presents them in a sociological context.

The paintings themselves are exquisite, and the text adds considerably to the work, strengthening and adding a deeper meaning to the images.

Double Portrait, by John Drawbridge.

(Gallery Fe29)

The focus of the latest exhibition at Fe29 is a small series of John Drawbridge works created in the 1960s in protests a environmental degradation and more specifically French nuclear testing. While these pieces are the centrepiece of the display, they are a small part of an exhibition overall.

The works, predominantly etchings and mezzotints, are excellent. The etched protest pieces, feature subtle landforms and waveforms created from series of parallel lines "raked" to suggest single strokes or pouring rain. There is something of the powerful austerity of Hotere’s Black Paintings in these pieces.

Elsewhere, the precise subtlety of Drawbridge’s mezzotint work comes to the fore in the soft forms of Whale Wave. The artist’s versatility is also on display in works ranging from delicate line sketches of Cornish villages through to the inky depths of still lifes such as Bottles and Table II, and the sombre landforms of Untitled Landscape. It is in these darker pieces that the artist’s economy of line and form is displayed front and centre. The subjects in Bottles and Double Portrait are implied rather than stated, and the work is more haunting as a result.

The pieces are well complemented by a series of prints and bronzes by Tanya Ashken.

Highcliff Road, by Judy Smith.

(Moray Gallery)

The title of Judy Smith’s exhibition at Moray Gallery says it all. The artist has created a series of painted works celebrating the colours and landforms of Dunedin, and has produced works that sing the song of their city.

The paintings are in brightly coloured acrylic, a mix of heady blossom pinks, grassy greens, and the oranges and browns of clay and trees. Smith has used broad painterly strokes to create her scenes, allowing the images to shimmer as if in the warmth of a late spring day.

Though the scenes themselves are hardly original, using the same store of subjects as many other local painters have done, it is this vibrancy which gives the images their impetus. The washes of broad strokes which form the leaves of the Northern Ground and Queens Dr create archways through which the mind can wander, and distant buildings and landforms are depicted in simple but effective terms.

It is the works painted with strong side lighting that are the most effective, such as the cherry blossoms of Wycolla Ave, daffodils at the start of the northern motorway, and the winding path of Highcliff Rd. All of these works transport the viewer to their locations beautifully.

By James Dignan