In the first Art Seen of the new year, Robyn Maree Pickens looks at exhibitions from Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the University of Otago, and Kushana Bush.
‘‘By the Laws of Chance’’ (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
The answer is both chance and the result of meticulous research. One of the strengths of this exhibition is the wide net cast by its curator, Andrea Bell.
It is an exhibition that draws on both historical artefacts (from the Hocken Library and the gallery's own collection) with contemporary artworks across a range of media by predominantly young New Zealand artists.
An elusive entity, this exhibition manages to substantiate material indicators of chance, such as an exquisite Japanese netsuke (keepsake) of Daikoku, the god of wealth, while simultaneously suggesting that it is always just out of reach (Erica van Zon's Casino Dice and Chips, 2013).
Given the context, however, gold is never far away. Joseph Perry's albumen print (photograph) of Gabriels Gully (c1865) represents the discovery of gold that led to the flourishing of Dunedin city, and turns up in a one-dollar coin cast in solid gold by John Ward Knox, and given to the first person who asked for money.
‘‘The Burning Hours’’, Kushana Bush (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
Comprising 21 paintings and one drawing, ''The Burning Hours'', by Dunedin artist Kushana Bush is the culmination of two and a-half years of painstaking work in one of the most difficult and demanding mediums: gouache (and gold).
The results are astonishing. Each painting contains an elaborate, if intentionally ambiguous narrative that involves a tangle of multi-ethnic humanity wearing richly patterned garments (or naked); where hand-crafted porcelain vases, illuminated manuscripts, bells and musical instruments are incorporated alongside mass-produced contemporary objects (extension cords, scissors, flags, umbrellas, watches), and an array of animals, birds and fruit.
It is the uncanny juxtapositions of these animate and inanimate entities, coupled with the breadth of human expression ranging from ecstasy to anguish, and the detail and delicate rendering of the subjects, that makes these paintings absorbing.
Each carefully arranged composition draws on a variety of sources that include observations, art historical sources, and pure invention.
At first glance it is the art historical that appears to dominate, bringing to mind early Italian Renaissance masters, but then the complex compositions reaching out to the edge of the picture plane evoke medieval manuscripts.
Up close the viewer recognises the Nike swish and Dole insignia. Here the sublime and the absurd commingle perfectly.
‘‘Keeping it in the Family’’ (Special Collections, University of Otago Library)
Curated by Drs Ruth Knezevich and Thomas McLean, ''Keeping it in the Family: British and Irish Literary Generations, 1770-1930'' presents early and first editions of the works of such literary names as Shelley, Wordsworth, Bronte and Wilde.
Each vitrine, cabinet or drawer is dedicated to a particular Victorian (or early Modernist) literary, artistic or scientific family. As the exhibition title suggests, and as the supplementary material - letters, engravings, illustrations, and reproductions of portraits - attests, the creative process is frequently a collaborative one.
In this instance the curators have focused on collaborations between kin. This kinship collaboration is particularly evident in the Rossetti vitrine, which includes Dio e l'Uomo (God and Man), a collection of political poetry by the paterfamilias Gabriele Rossetti, and two collections of poetry by his daughter Christina Rossetti illustrated in the elaborate, sinuous Pre-Raphaelite style by Christina's brother, the poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti.
Dante's Poems (1870) sits alongside his sister's books. Such a presentation brings to life the intergenerational creativity that fuelled the Rossetti family's artistic and literary successes.
Likewise, in the cabinet dedicated to Wilde, early editions of Oscar Wilde's A House of Pomegranates (1891) share the spotlight with Wilde's mother's works, the poet and linguist Lady Jane Wilde.
By Robyn Maree Pickens