Art seen: Dynamic environments create visceral atmosphere

Laura Elliott takes a look at the latest exhibitions in Otago.

Landscape 139 (2013), by Mike Petre

Mike Petre consistently produces work that challenges the traditions of rural landscape painting. As a nation often defined by its ''green'' image, the plains, forests and hay bales of the New Zealand countryside have appeared in countless depictions of a bucolic agricultural paradise.

Petre's aim to is get away from that idea of the artist merely ''visiting'' the landscape, the superficial sense of the land as seen through the distant eyes of an urban observer.

Having spent much of his life in the country, Petre sees and paints the rural landscape as a working industry, a dynamic evolving environment rather than a romanticised pastoral ideal.

Thick paint fills and overlaps bold outlines to create a rough, tactile surface, while the colour palette veers from the crayon-bright tones of grass, buildings and felled timber to a more muted realism in the overcast sky.

There is a very palpable sense of atmosphere in the works, an immediate impression of cool weather and wind, the sounds and smells of the working farm. Dark clouds threaten imminent rain in Landscape 145 (2013), while a wind sock is strongly pulled by the breeze.

There is a notable absence of human figures, but signs of the perpetual daily routine pervade each piece. These are not idyllic scenes of sunshine and sleepy sheep, but portraits of hard work and genuine comradeship with the land.

Return of the Sentimental Gentleman I and II, by Sean Crawford

At first glance, Sean Crawford's new work is like a fantastical scene from a steampunk woodland, a collection of animal-machine hybrids. Combining taxidermy with laser-cut steel sculpture, Crawford creates the impression of living creatures caught in motion, partially transformed into mechanical structures or vice versa.

The exhibition is a strong commentary on the forced acclimatisation of animals, when various species are introduced into strange and often hostile environments because of the whims and desires of human settlers to surround themselves with the familiar.

The inability of people to adapt to a new setting without transporting the flora, fauna and sporting pursuits of home puts the burden on the animal population to evolve and survive. In some cases, they not only survive but thrive.

Works like Return of the Sentimental Gentleman I and II and 1080 Hang Up reference the development of pest plague and control.

On closer inspection, the steel halves of the Sentimental Gentleman duo are a lattice of jumbled human figures, mask-like and threatening.

In Chasing the Ghost of George Grey, the hare's metallic belly is a ghostly frenzy of hunting dogs with violent swishes of tails and slashes of ribs.

Thematically, Crawford's work is a compelling dialogue and criticism of the battle that humans wage against the natural environment. In technical execution and close study, the sculptural components of the pieces are quite intricately beautiful.

cipher, by Megan Huffadine

The word ''cipher'' conjures images of mystery, intrigue, puzzles and research. Megan Huffadine's current show delves into an exploration of symbols and language, the deconstruction and repetition of shapes and patterns.

The works also play with concepts of genealogy and ethnography, the facts, fiction and ''secret languages'' passed down through societies and families.

''The fragments of stories, objects and photos handed down through families are ciphers'', says the artist of her work.

''They carry information, codes and symbols that may be used to make sense of and express identity.''

The three sculptures are the most immediately compelling pieces, each a wall installation comprised of separate shapes that form both an individual and a collective pattern.

The components of reading lesson #1: portrait with totems are almost tribal in appearance, but aspects of cipher are reminiscent of iconography in archaic Greek art.

As the eye travels across the work, the mind tries to identify and piece together various shapes: perhaps a vase here, a weapon there.

It's very much like ''reading'' a visual language, like looking at hieroglyphics or a secret code.

Motifs in the sculptures are repeated in the smaller framed works, which combine collage, fragments of old diagrams, hand-stitching and drawing to present an image like a museum curator's scrapbook.

The meaning and intention is not immediately obvious; pondering seems to be encouraged.