''New Works'', Steev Peyroux (The Artist's Room)Steev Peyroux continues to impress with his moody, atmospheric coastlines.
In his latest exhibition he reveals a selection of six large works and a series of smaller pieces, several of which are studies for the former images.
Peyroux uses a severely limited palette; heavy, storm-lashed shores in deep monochromatic tones of blue-grey or sepia, and lighter scenes in pastel blues and earthy greens suggestive of a bleached coast seen under heavy overcast.
Of the latter, Reflection is a particularly fine work, the titular lambent light beautifully captured on the wet Brighton sand.
The half-formed coast of Mystify is also an impressive piece.
The sombre, stormy scenes of the more monochromatic pieces are effectively haunting.
Although painted in oil, they still bear the hallmarks of the artist's former printmaking techniques, yet with these works the depth and subtlety of the colour comes strikingly to the fore.
Whether it is the calm sea beginning to stir before the impending steel-blue tempest of Navigator or the glowing dirt-brown clouds of the magnificent Haze, these panoramic works produce an emotional pull.
Peyroux's subtle, shifting light, particularly in the latter piece, shows the artist's love of J.M.W. Turner's masterpieces, as well as indicating a strong artistic kinship with such New Zealand artists as Simon Edwards and Garry Currin.
''Muaupoko'' (Brett McDowell Gallery)
Brett McDowell Gallery has assembled a selection of mainly older works celebrating the scenery and life of Otago Peninsula.
The exhibition deals with the connection which several artists have with the peninsula's hills and coastline, and many of its works simultaneously chronicle the close kinship between the artists themselves.
Robin White's smooth stylised landscapes hold centre stage in the exhibition, alongside a series of interconnected pieces by White and by Laurence Aberhart focused on Victory Beach.
A low-key panoramic photograph by Aberhart of the beach and the nearby Pyramids taken in 1980 sits next to White's 1981 screen print of Aberhart's daughter, Kamala, at the same site.
The strong friendship between the Dunedin artists, and by implication between many of the city's artists at this time, is evinced in the subject matter and its treatment.
Elsewhere in the exhibition are two fine studies by Barry Cleavin and a bold ink and pastel work by H.V. Miller.
The latter, although not strictly within the exhibition's theme (it pictures Mihiwaka, on the opposite side of the harbour), impresses with its strong confident lines.
The exhibition is completed with a historical touch: an 1880s watercolour, artist unknown, of the harbour and peninsula as seen from near Sawyers Bay.
''Reset the Moon'', Daniel Anngow (Mint Gallery)
Daniel Anngow's exhibition at Mint is an intriguing mix of two creative modes, and also of two distinct forms of visual art.
The different modes are the visual stimulation brought by the painted and mixed-media abstracts, and the verbal, in the form of short snatches of prose and poetry presented alongside the art by Anngow.
In some cases, the words augment the semi-abstract art; at other times there is a dissonance or, at the very least, a clashing of ideas in such a way as to produce new interpretations in the mind of the viewer/reader, the words informing the pictures and vice versa.
The visual art itself takes two separate forms.
Many of the works are pure, gestural abstract, heavy liquid swirls of paint dropped and manipulated on the canvas to produce shifting bands of colour.
Hue and tone are all in these works, and aesthetic value is taken purely from the juxtapositions and contours of the colours themselves.
The remaining, perhaps more easily accessible, images are mixed media, worked from a combination of printed and painted photo manipulations, overlaid with jumbles of script and characters.
These become a doorway into an alternative reality, a world similar to ours, yet as seen through a haze of altered perception.
The works are as intriguing as they are impressive.
