BY LAURA ELLIOTT
(Eade Gallery, Clyde)
The artists in the Indigo group work with vastly different media, contrasting styles and unique visions, but that collation of differences always brings beautiful results. With eight artists contributing to their new exhibition, "Indigo@Eade" is the perfect show to welcome in the Central Otago summer.
There is a sheer elegance to Luke Anthony’s bird sculptures that’s very beautiful; each figure captures an individual expressiveness that breathes life into the work, and the shadows cast on the wall beyond incorporate light itself into the composition. Anthony both depicts and collaborates with nature.
Lynne Wilson’s Raku-fired ceramic Art Deco Lidded Box and Quattro Lidded Box could be bejewelled artefacts from a bygone era, the Art Deco box particularly gorgeous with its structural geometric patterning and joyful splashes of colour, both frequent features of that period of ceramic and architectural design.
Among a very strong showing of paintings, Shaun Burdon’s thought-provoking abstractions are as much about the process, the act of creation, as the subject matter, which emerges as the artist becomes lost in the work and the moment, driven by feeling and the emotive power of colour and texture.
Judy Cockeram’s Drift Net and Noxious Beauty are small and intricate, wire-encircled treasures that invite a third and fourth look as new details emerge. Cockeram makes a connection between poetry and her art, putting into words the feeling her works generate — looking at each piece is like seeing a story sparking to life in the frame and continuing in the mind, images indelibly entwined with words.
(Gallery Thirty Three, Wanaka)
In a glow of soft light and mist, under the watchful gazes of inquisitive birds, you look through a gap in the surrounding leaves and branches, toward reflective waters and snowy peaks. Janette Cervin’s mixed-media works are always like portals into another plane, as she paints on to layer after layer of poured resin, creating an incredible depth and three-dimensionality. Each piece is a love letter to this country, every well-trod, hidden, forgotten, and endangered corner of it.
Her most recent collection was partly inspired by a journey to the Subantarctic Islands on the Russian research vessel Spirit of Enderby. In Our Big Blue Backyard, a tiny painted ship sails past a cascading waterfall, as an endless world of cool waters, albatrosses, seals and penguins opens up, drawing in the viewer. The stout, staring little seal in the centre of Antipodean Sunrise is a particular favourite.
Vastly different in tone, but just as inviting, is Simon Lewis Wards’ Big Spill. His tongue-in-cheek, oversized renditions of iconic New Zealand sweets act as a magnet to both adults and children, consistently making people smile. Beyond the whimsy is incredible craftsmanship, however, and the Big Spill is beautifully done, as an enormous paper bag tips up, spilling a cascade of equally huge lollies down the wall. The light catches on cast-glass airplanes and creates a matte glossiness on the surface of ceramic milk bottles, and it’s like stepping into a childhood memory.
(Gallery Thirty Three, Wanaka)
Coiling and curling, it’s as if silken ribbons are dancing in an imaginary breeze, their ends suspended in the still air. Despite the illusion of fragility and delicacy, Kiya Nancarrow’s latest collection is sculpted from corten steel and powder-coated mild steel, each rippling construction crafted to withstand the rigours of time. Forged through the lens of Buddhism, psychotherapy, and the artist’s own geographical and metaphysical travels, the works — or "energy loops", as Nancarrow terms them — explore the concept of infinite energy. Every force and feeling throughout space and history is driven by constant sparks of energy, the silent mechanism, an endless continuum.
Nancarrow wants the eye to move continuously over and around the sculptures, gliding smoothly around each curve, and as you look over the spiralling yellow ribbon of Mambo or the glossy red folds of Transience, it is a bit as if you’re on a visual rollercoaster, following the satin-smooth steel as it rises and rises, then swoops down, rolls under. The monochrome palette for each piece enhances that sense of cohesion and trapped energy. The tone of Waters Deep is particularly effective, appearing almost black from certain angles, like the deepest depths of the ocean, hidden from the light. On closer inspection, however, the work is a gorgeous shimmering blue, the surface alight with thousands of minuscule glittering particles.
