Art seen

Travelling the harbour road to Bellamy's Gallery at Macandrew Bay, one cannot miss the whimsical bus shelters with which the name of artist John Noakes will forever be associated.

Local painter Daniel Mead has recently celebrated Noakes' life and work by adding a portrait of the artist to the Company Bay bus shelter.

To coincide with the unveiling of this tribute, Bellamy's Gallery is holding an exhibition of some of Noakes' less well-known works. Rather than the caricatures and humourous cartoon figures for which he is best remembered, this show features a collection of delicate and attractive ink sketches of flora. The display is part of the Dunedin Botanic Garden's collection, and may have been created to accompany a talk and exhibition at the gardens in 1985.

The works are predominantly monochromatic pieces. They are delicate and painstakingly created, the textures built up in a pointillist manner, shading areas within the outlines of the plants with closely spaced dot-work. Alongside are a handful of hand-coloured works which well capture the textures of leaf and bark.

The exhibition shows a different facet to the artist, and indicates clearly that there was more to his work than his exuberant roadside delights.

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While Noakes' works are delicate, the same cannot be said of John Badcock's wilful impressionism. Flourishes of paint roil across board, the artist's bold work building a seething vibrant city scene from a series of gestural strokes.

Eight works are presented, six of them showing inner-Dunedin streetscapes, alongside which are one Carey's Bay harbour scene and a more pastoral work of land close to the artist's home in Geraldine. All of the works use the same technique; forms are hinted at amidst the clotted impasto, the general atmosphere and presence of the scene eventually being as important to the painting as fine detail.

The result is a vibrant impression of a scene rather than a photographic image. Mood and the play of light on solid structure are captured effectively, and the confidence of the artist to allow his paint to become the surface (rather than simply be washed over a ready-prepared surface) fills the works with light.

The image of South Canterbury countryside is perhaps the most indicative of the artist's technique. Here, the solidity of buildings upon which to nail his paint is absent. The brushwork becomes clear and tectonic, the impasto elements left to the heavy clouds which hang from a limpid sky.

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Amidst the Hocken Library's vast collection of art, photographs, and historical items, it is not surprising to find many treasures relating to ships and the sea. Dunedin is a port city in a country which is surrounded by a vast ocean, and the sea has been an integral part of the lives of its people.

Exhibition curator Anna Peterson has put together an impressive eclectic mix of works and articles, ranging from photographs, paintings, and sketches to video and a display of fascinating ephemera tracing much of this natural bond.

Several of the works are of major historical significance, among them a series of early sketches of the new land visited by European explorers and settlers, among them several fine works by E.A. Williams. Several of Hubert Ponting's photographs from Scott's last expedition to the Antarctic are also present, as are several notable paintings by the likes of William Forster and John Turnbull Thomson.

Ponting's work also features in the video, a visual tribute to the frozen continent accompanied by Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sinfonia Antartica. The collection of shipping ephemera is also fascinating, including as it does everything from shipping company stationery and early maps to rigging plans and ships blueprints.