Art seen: March 27

'Offerings to the Unknown Dead, Kyoto, Japan', Brian Brake (courtesy Otago Museum)

''Lens on the World'', Brian Brake (Otago Museum)

In the pantheon of New Zealand photographers, few shine as brightly as Brian Brake.

In ''Lens on the world'', Otago Museum presents a major must-see retrospective of the work of this master lensman, from his early portraiture through his international career with the Magnum agency and Life magazine from the 1950s to 1970s, and on to his return to New Zealand and final years.

As always, Otago Museum has produced an excellently curated exhibition.

The images are augmented by video displays and magazine spreads, as well as informative textual information about the photographer and his work. Works are arranged roughly chronologically, in sections devoted to major projects by the photographer.

The early portraits show Brake's skill, but it is the candid, behind-the-scenes work in his first years at Magnum, which show the distinct style he would bring to his later work.

We are led through Brake's excellent photo essays in his specialist field of Asian life to his most famous works, the ''Monsoon'' project and his work in Japan.

From here the exhibition travels past studies of Egyptian monuments and Australian life, before leading to Brake's return to New Zealand.

One of the final images, a deep, moody image of Milford Sound, leads us full circle to the low-key New Zealand portraiture of Brake's youth.

'Blossom' (Large piece) (detail), by Tara Douglas

''Blossom'', Tara Douglas (Mint Gallery)

Tara Douglas has created an immersive environment through simple materials with her exhibition ''Blossom'', at Mint Gallery.

In this display, Douglas has produced an obsessive and massive sculptural work in the form of myriad blooms constructed from coloured paper.

These have been meticulously hand folded to produce four works.

Three of the pieces are relatively small works, consisting of a few dozen blooms, but the largest fills much of the gallery space.

Pink flowers - interspersed with the occasional yellow bloom - dominate the gallery, not only through their bulk, but also through the selective use of lighting.

Coloured mesh hangs across the windows and magenta gel covers the gallery lights to bathe and suffuse the whole art space in a bright yet slightly claustrophobic pink light.

This, along with the overbearing presence of the flowers, leads to the work inhabiting the gallery, and every visitor leaving the exterior world to be welcomed into the realm of this fantasy flower land.

The effect is impressive, inasmuch as it leaves the viewer's senses overwhelmed by the heady atmosphere produced by the colour and shape of the flowers within the gallery space.

'Spring Stream', by Anya Sinclair

After the overwhelming colour of Tara Douglas' blooms, Anya Sinclair's moist tropical gardens come as a welcome muted pleasure, bringing us back to Brake's ''Monsoon''.

Sinclair's paintings seem to exude the mists of the rainy season in some equatorial land, the colours draining from the lush greenery with the translucent air.

Some structures occasionally emerge, to show that these were once tamed gardens, perhaps now reclaimed by nature.

The small exhibition of some half a dozen works at The Artist's Room opened concurrently with the artist's brief Fringe exhibition at the Community Gallery.

That latter show, now complete, teamed Sinclair with her brother, a perfumier, with scent inspired by image and painting inspired by scent.

Though the current exhibition does not follow this technique, it is easy to imagine the fragrance of the half-overgrown tropical garden emanating from Sinclair's works.

The paintings are created from a limited palette of deep blue-greens, occasionally alleviated by flashes of ochre and crimson.

Occasional stray flecks of bright paint spread across the hauntingly deep hues, as if to suggest the flashes of sunlight which occasionally filter through the trees.

The overall impression is of being immersed in the paintings, entering a dim glade to escape from the humidity of the forest.