"Large works" (Milford Galleries Dunedin)
Milford Galleries Dunedin is presenting an impressive display of large works by some of New Zealand's top modern artists.
The pieces encompass public gallery-standard works by several of the country's most important painters, including the likes of Philip Clairmont and Bill Hammond, as well as substantial pieces by artists such as Karl Maughan and Garry Currin who are destined to be considered in the same esteemed company.
All seven works are noteworthy.
The skewed perspectives of Hammond's draughtsmanlike acrylic Headset 1 & 2 and Clairmont's exuberant expressionism are welcome rarities - works by these artists not held in private collections.
Similarly welcome is Robert Ellis's symbolism-laden piece, with its map-like landform and cheiromantic notation showing the furrows of a land as personal as the wrinkles of a hand.
Alongside these works is a shimmering, shaded garden pathway by Maughan and a bold, heroic, ice-blue impasto mountainside by Neil Frazer.
Garry Currin's astonishing work, with its subtle coloration and undulating depths is a taster for a show which he will have at the gallery in the coming months.
Finally, if any work epitomises the show, it is Nigel Brown's enormous mural-sized canvas, full of references to "New Zealand and how we got here", both in terms of our social and art history.
"Status Update", Marc Blake (Milford Galleries Dunedin)
Also at Milford Galleries Dunedin is a new exhibition of works by Marc Blake.
Blake's mixed media images cleverly use the grain of the board on which they are drawn and painted to provide a contour map upon which his protagonists perform.
Blake's previous works contained images where there had clearly been violent activity.
Here the violence is not present, yet the threat of the unseen still remains among the subtle softness.
The images produce a feeling of unsettled calm, for this is a world which is too obviously a stage, and upon which any actions could unfold.
Blake takes his lead from found images, reproducing them as motifs within the works.
Japan is a clear influence, with ukiyo-e trees and waves, but this is a timeless Japan.
The ancient is balanced by modern references, such as the anti-pollution masks which add another touch of hidden menace.
In this latest display, the actions have either yet to happen or have happened and been mentally erased.
We are caught watching the opening or closing moments of a narrative, though it is a story of which we and maybe the actors themselves are unaware, and the artist leaves us to apply our own scripts to explain the scenes.
"Lux Lux Lux", Gabriella Arturo (Rice and Beans Gallery)
Rice and Beans is a new artist-run art space in Lower Stuart St.
Its aim is to present experimental and conceptual art, in doing so placing itself approximately between the focuses of None Gallery and the Blue Oyster.
Its inaugural exhibition is "Lux Lux Lux", by Gabriella Arturo, which - true to the gallery's aims - is a work which head-scratchingly pushes the boundaries of art with its questioning of the artist-observer relationship.
At first glance, the exhibition may not seem to amount to art at all, instead simply presenting a room with three sets of binoculars trained out the window at the world beyond.
Yet, like much conceptual art, it is the question being posed as much as the means of posing it which relays the artist's thought processes.
The viewer entering the room seems compelled to look through the binoculars, focusing on whatever part of the world beyond takes their fancy.
The gallery, seemingly empty, acts as some form of mental camera obscura, an analogy of its role as a window into the mind of the exhibiting artist and social space to present their coalesced thoughts.
The gallery as metaphorical window to the soul finds perfect reflection in this gallery as literal window on the city.
