(Milford Gallery)
Saying "Ralph Hotere" pretty much says it all. Milford’s latest exhibition is an impressive overview of the maestro’s works, incorporating examples of many styles, from ink sketches and acrylics through to glass and steel constructions and a large corrugated iron triptych.
The exhibition is a rare delight — a collection this size of the works of New Zealand’s principal modern artist is uncommon, and Milford has become as much a public art gallery as a dealer’s display room, with many of the items lent from private collections. As such, it’s unlikely that an exhibition of these pieces will ever be seen in one place again.
Many of the works shown are in the colours which have become inextricably linked with the artist — bright shiny black, metallics, and the off-white of fine art paper, though several of the more memorable works use unexpected colour. Notable among these is "Winter Solstice", a stained glass work originally displayed in Hotere’s studio and now, lit from within, a bright reminder of the artist’s warm, often playful nature. A bold shaft of colour also inhabits one of the artist’s "poem" works, completed in collaboration with poet Bill Manhire. In many ways, the star of a show full of stars is arguably "XP" its stark gold-leafed Christian letters perfectly enclosed within a wooden window frame.
(Moray Gallery)
James Kerr explores his links with the Maniototo in a series of works inspired by the land along State Highway 85, the Pig Root.
As with many highways, the road can be considered simply as a route from A to B, but stopping to concentrate on this transition zone allows the artist to connect with the country itself as something more than a mere backdrop to travel. Using a bold, expressionist style and a palette so bright as to almost be gaudy, the artist breathes life into his canvases to present a vivid, psychedelic north Otago, with heat and light shimmering through the trees and across the hills.
Several of the works expand the area of interest away from the Pig Root, with the area around Arrowtown and Skippers also featured. In all of the paintings, there is an exuberance to the land, a land resplendent in pinks, yellows and lavenders. Despite the seemingly false colours, the land is well defined, and in images such as Highway 85, Arrow River trail, and the remarkably colourful Tussock Warriors at the Pass, one is left with a strong impression of the land as it sits under the extremes of its climate.
(Olga)
More wilfully expressionist work can be found at Olga, where Marie Strauss mixes the style with her love for animals and a taste for the quirky. Strauss’s works cover a range of different media, with small eccentric ceramic-led mixed media animal heads, bold, bright paintings, and another mixed work combining lino print and collage.
The animal-head sculptures and absurdist images, none more so than "Monkey with fascinator", a grotesque head topped with black and white feathers. The deliberately distorted heads become the characters of the pantomime of the exhibition’s title. There is a charm to several of these pieces, notably a pink pig and a series of birds’ heads. The assortment of heads is reflected in the lino and collage work, the silver-grey Masks on my mantelpiece.
If this latter work is muted in colour, the same cannot be said for the exuberant oil paints which complete the exhibition. Several of these pay homage to the artist’s inspirations from the world of classical painting, with Ensor, Matisse, Rembrandt, and Bonnard all name-checked in the titles of the works. The same series of figurine heads reappears in Ode to Ensor, whereas works such as Ode to Bonnard and Matisse’s Vase are vibrant still lifes.
By James Dignan
