''Sublime Worlds'', Martin Thompson (Dunedin Public Art Gallery)
Martin Thompson is engaged in a single-handed battle against entropy.
His precise geometries call on the gods of mathematics to restore order to chaos, or more literally, to use the rules of chaos to produce tapestry-like abstracts of symmetrical complex order.
Armed with graph paper and pen, Thompson explores the realms of infinite repetition opened by the likes of Benoit Mandelbrot, but hinted at from at least the time of medieval Islamic design.
Using his own mathematical rules, the artist produces pure ordered grids which hint at larger, more grandiose patterns hidden within.
To call Thompson's art obsessive would be a massive understatement.
His work has a compulsive, almost monomaniacal edge. On the occasions where a mistake is made, the artist builds over the error with miniature fragments, painstakingly positioned to restore the rigorously precise image.
This technique is examined in several of the works in the display.
Thompson also exacts absolute control over the colours he uses, the precise shades being as important as the patterns themselves.
Yet within the rigorous grids, there is astonishing beauty, as if the artist has somehow broken through to an absolute truth, some Platonic form of the universe's structure.
They are as hypnotic in appearance as they are breathtaking for the work which has gone into creating them.
''In Spaces Beyond'', Scotto Clarke (Brick Brothers Gallery)
Despite having spent more than 40 years as a widely published commercial photographer, ''In Spaces Beyond'' is the debut gallery exhibition of Scotto Clarke's images.
Clarke's photography covers a number of subjects - from still life to portraits and landscape - yet his works are tied together by an underlying feeling of narrative.
The images are like stills from an ongoing movie, that movie being life itself.
Clarke offers no explanation or hints as to the dialogues or plot lines, but instead leaves the viewer to allow the scenes to trigger their own thoughts and recollections.
The photographs are nothing if not evocative.
The portraits, often using Clarke's wife and daughter as models, impressively capture mood, most notably in the haunting monochrome Mother and daughter.
The digitally enhanced portrait While She Sleeps is also an impressive piece.
Several of the landscapes are soft and low-key, the rolling waves of a quiet beach reflected in the rolling hills of other scenes.
Two higher key works, An Echo Through the Ages and Road to Perdition stand out almost as bold dreamscapes.
The technical aspects of Clarke's photography come to the fore in his moody still lifes, the precise focus and colour balance of The Perfect Rose in particular living up to its title.
''Remnants of the Veil'', Sarah Freiburger (Mint Gallery)
Sarah Freiburger's acrylic paintings fill Mint Gallery with colour.
The show features both new and older works, giving the viewer the opportunity to see the changes in style of the artist over the past few years.
Freiburger's work focuses predominantly on landscape and animal studies, though flowers also make an appearance in several of the newer pieces.
The landscapes are largely naturalistic, although imaginative elements have been introduced to a couple, notable the lush valleys of Gertrude Saddle.
The artist has effectively captured light, particularly in View from Mount Cargill and Birch Forest.
Some recent works show a move towards a more mosaic-influenced approach, images being made up of large pixels of solid colour.
Her autumnal landscape of Lake Wanaka shows this technique to great effect.
The combination of mosaic and natural forms, as in Kowhai Blossom is very effective, possibly more so than the use of either technique singly.
The artist's flower studies, however, are very nicely done, the eponymous subject of the painting Rhododendrons being one of the stars of the show.
In her animal studies, Freiburger has focused on snails as a subject, most enjoyably in the whimsical Up and Over with its shelled protagonist crawling over a patient, yet clearly irritated, frog.
