Art seen: The secret life of mermaids

'Ralph and Jeffrey discover a sunken galleon', by Ivan Hill.
'Ralph and Jeffrey discover a sunken galleon', by Ivan Hill.
Chanelle Carick looks at the latest exhibitions in Dunedin.

•Deidre Copeland, Works on Paper: New Drawings and Etchings (Artist's Room)

Deidre Copeland's intimate and often forthright portraits are strikingly realistic.

This latest group of drawings demonstrates both her technical skill and her strong grasp of portraiture's expressive power.

Despite their intense close-up format, her works are revealing rather than confrontational, each individual depicted with a sincerity that allows for the development of a subject-and-viewer relationship.

Copeland's characters, mostly older men, bear the signs of a life of hard work, their faces lined and their brows heavy.

But there is also a sense of the light-hearted.

In Seriously, Tim for example, Tim Shadbolt, his expression pensive, offers the viewer a mask depicting his more jovial and characteristic self.

Hands, however, seem to hold as much, if not more, expressive power than the facial features of Copeland's individuals.

They reach out, almost coming into contact with the picture plane as they hold, conceal and expose.

In Secret, Copeland emphasises the power of the gesture.

Here a face in seen in profile, the hand curled with index finger pressed against the lips, to caution the viewer against breaking their confidence.

Janey's Room is the one work in which Copeland departs from the close-up portrait.

Here, the profile of a young woman, crouching and draped in a sheet, sits within a dark and undefined space.

This is a moving image, depicting a moment which, unlike many of Copeland's other portraits, looks inward towards a private narrative.

•Karen Lloyd, Recent Paintings (Moray Gallery)

Karen Lloyd's landscape paintings are vibrant, depicting well-known views, as in Portobello Bay or The Homestead, Glenfalloch, which are easily recognisable to local residents.

Throughout her works Lloyd employs an intensely heightened palette, using vivid, almost fluorescent green to form the rolling landscape, which is then reflected in crisp, bright blue water.

Remaining pure, each colour is laid down precisely and effectively, almost appearing to be the result of a premeditated system reminiscent of "paint-by-number" images.

Furthermore, the forms in her works are often stylised and flattened, pared down to the fundamental qualities of sea, hills, trees and sky.

The painting From Waikana Street, Broad Bay is particularly striking in that, compared with the standard horizontal and vertical balance of many of the other works, such as Pudding Island, it has a dominant diagonal pull.

It depicts a small cluster of buildings in the foreground, contrasting the bold form of a modern house with what appears to be the more colonial form of an old church.

Beyond this, however, the gently rolling hills of Lloyd's other works give way to a comparatively steep incline, dropping down towards the bottom right of the work.

The strong diagonals serve to flatten space even further, pushing it right up behind the houses.

Overall, Lloyd's landscapes, and portraits of architecture, are charming and bright, steeped in the brilliant glow of the Otago summer.

•Ivan Hill, Mermaids (Gallery De Novo)

Often referred to as a "naïve" artist, Ivan Hill is a well-known and successful figure whose work has been exhibited and collected throughout New Zealand.

His latest exhibition at De Novo displays his lively, colourful style, with a series of works depicting the secret life of mermaids.

The titles, written on the paintings, demonstrate Hill's interest in establishing narrative.

Titles such as The Mermaids find a castle on a hill or Ralph the pirate meets the Queen of the mermaids suggest that these works are illustrative, referring to specific episodes in a magical and enchanting tale (the character of Ralph being played by none other than a mermaid version of Ralph Hotere!).

This is not necessarily a children's story, however, as some works contain a hint of the sinister.

In the episode Mermaids surprised by a shark visit, for example, the beautiful mermaids dart about in alarm as an ominous blue shark, its teeth dripping blood, circles from above.

Other works, however, are less narrative-based and more painterly.

A group of smaller works, each entitled Fish, depicts a small school of brightly-coloured fish almost floating on a thick, impasto background.

The colours in these works are brilliant, reflecting the tones of corals and sea-creatures.

This is the mysterious world at the very depths of the ocean.

 

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