Art Seen: July 21

In this week's Art Seen, James Dignan looks at works from Jon Thom, Charlotte Parallel, and Gallery De Novo's winter exhibition.

Untitled, by Jon Thom.

Jon Thom returns to The Artist's Room with a fine array of untitled head-and-shoulder portraits. Thom's work has a distinct style, his works incorporating a fine understanding of his material and a strong use of line which works on images sized from small sketches to his Vogel St mural, just a stone's lob from the gallery.

In the current exhibition, the works are divided between small, delicate graphite works on toned paper and larger, darker mixed-media pieces. A couple of Thom's moody photographs of flower blooms are also on display.

The small works are attractive pieces which mix a precise finish in their facial features with a more sketch-like approach to garments and background. This deliberately focuses attention on the keen and precise depiction of the faces.

The larger drawings grab the attention with their bold smudged lines and heavily worked surfaces. Chiaroscuro plays an important part in these works, with the artist in several cases having started with a silver-black base before slowly wiping back his charcoal and graphite to reveal white surface from which the faces emerge.

Where the background is white, in several of the pieces, fierce mark making has produced images where the rubbing and smudging of the material has produced subtle and effective shading.

Waves and Bodies in Waves and Bodies, by Charlotte Parallel.

Charlotte Parallel has, for the last two months, been artist in residence at Blue Oyster Gallery, and this period of work and study has culminated in a piece lying at the threshold of conceptual art, sound art and body art.

Parallel's work often uses sound as a major component, and in this exhibition she has built up an aural space via recordings of the heartbeats of visitors to the gallery.

The exhibit will continue to expand throughout the course of the exhibition, as more and more recordings are added to the mix, each accessed by a button on the wall.

The resulting space becomes an analogy of a heart. Triggered by the electrical impulses from the wall switches, we can be siphoned through the gallery space as the lifeblood of the artistic practice.

Though the gallery space appears bare (with the exception of the wires across the wall), we are forced to contemplate the life force which has gone into the creation of the work, and to ponder our own mortality.

The sounds of the many heartbeats come in and out of synch with each other, creating a soothing yet very poignant soundscape, and we become aware of the tiny differences in the repetitions which could signal emotion, discomfort, relaxation or illness.

Eye of the Sky, by Gail de Jong.

There is much to admire in De Novo's winter exhibition, with a fine display of new work by an array of disparate artists. Several well-known names are present alongside works by emerging and lesser-known exponents of the craft.

Among the well-known names are a joyous crowd scene by Ewan McDougall and a contemplative moon mirror from Mary McFarlane. Suzy Platt's Woman with Magpie also impresses, as does some fine glasswork by Di Tocker.

Surprises are in store with some better-known names, however - Peter Nicholls, best known for his large scale sculpture, has produced some lovely, delicate pastel landscapes, and Maria Kemp has abandoned her usual palette for a fine monochrome vista of Dunedin from the harbour.

Mahiriki Tangaroa's painting impresses with two pieces of cubist Pasifika, and traditional Polynesian styles are also represented by a rhythmic work from Ana Teofilo. A touch of whimsy is added by John Santucci's dream ship, and John Badcock's dramatic gestural rhododendrons add a welcome splash of colour.

The landscapes caught my eye the most, however, notably Greer Clayton's misty hills, a semi-abstract work by Gail de Jong, a strong, atmospheric scene by Jenny de Groot, and a honeyed harbour sunrise from Philip Beadle.