•Original drawings and screen prints, Michael Smither (Gallery De Novo)
As a part of the 2009 Dunedin Heritage Festival Gallery De Novo has brought together the work of two past Frances Hodgkins Fellows, Michael Smither and Marilynn Webb.
Both are highly successful and well-known contemporary artists working in a range of media and subject matter.
Smither was awarded the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship in 1970, and the works in this exhibition span the full extent of his career thus far.
Smither's characteristic bold and vibrant style can be seen in all of these works, from the highly gestural pencil drawing Rachel Reading (1984) to the flat and abstracted After Seurat (2007), which consists of interlocking blocks of colour.
Smither's representational subjects are often taken from daily life, uplifting the everyday and sometimes even the mundane into the realm of art.
In Cracker (2008), for example, a glorified and magnified Huntley and Palmers topped with a slice of cheese dominates the picture plane, a bold and contextless image reminiscent of Pop Art.
Sarah with Baked Beans (2007) is a more intimate rendition of the everyday.
This work captures a moment at which his daughter Sarah is in a playful pose, holding a spoon full of beans up in the air.
This collection also includes other still lifes, landscapes and portraits, providing the viewer with the full experience of Smither's artistic practice.
•Original watercolours, woodblocks and pastels, Marilynn Webb (Gallery De Novo)
Marilynn Webb, Frances Hodgkins Fellow in 1974, is a Dunedin-based artist.
Her works often display a sensibility towards the land, depicting culturally, environmentally and personally significant landscapes which are then overlaid with symbolic forms.
In Doubtful Sound (2008), for example, ghostly hands float on the surface of the work, reaching in towards the mountainous forms in the centre.
Webb pares back landforms to their most basic elements, flattening and outlining hills that both interlock and at times seem to float in front of the more painterly watercolour backdrops she places them against.
In Snow Lake Mahinerangi (1984), the sloping diagonals of the lake's shore seem to slide into the water, their bold and flat edges contrasting with the seething sky above.
Webb establishes this contrast by using linoleum engraving to delineate the shape of her landscape, resulting in almost stained-glass-like clarity when compared with the ambiguous washes of watercolour of the sky.
Webb also uses colour to great effect, heightening and juxtaposing shades that often contrast yet do not clash.
Swimming Holes and Willows from 1987, for example, is a swirling landscape of brilliant pink and moss green.
Furthermore, the sky in this work is dense, almost black, the flatness of which is ruptured by the gestural passage of several brushstrokes reflecting the glow from below.
•Works by Judith Wolfe (Community Gallery) Pop Presney Fisherman by Michael Smither.
Local artist Judith Wolfe has a collection of vibrant and expressionistic paintings on display at the Community Gallery.
Working with a diverse range of themes, Wolfe has a distinctive style, combining painterly brushstrokes and vivid, heightened colour with an often dramatic and dense format.
This exhibition brings together works under the themes of landscapes, buildings and other, several of which include biblical references.
Alongside colourful and animated depictions of stained-glass windows such as The Passion, St Patricks Church, Stain Glass, Wolfe also depicts subjects such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Enchantment, St Pauls Cathedral, Dunedin is a particularly fascinating work, depicting a vision-like gathering of angels and Christian figures floating in surprising clarity within the cathedral.
Several of Wolfe's paintings have an ominous, almost nightmarish sense, however.
Carousel, the dream of a little boy, depicts a child riding on the back of a carousel horse.
The horses are wild, bucking and stampeding, while the child holds on in terror.
In the Grip of Greed, America is more symbolic but also disturbing.
In this work a giant clawed hand comes down to clench and overcome a dense group of anonymous people, implying, as the title suggests, the society of mass consumption.
Finally, Wolfe's landscapes range from the calm and tranquil to the awe-inspiring, where lightning and volcanoes disrupt the surface and create a sense of tension and impact.
