T. J. McNamara: Mythical creatures in a modern world

Opinion

New Zealand resident in England Alexis Hunter has established a reputation there over many years as an outstanding artist. She has continued to have exhibitions here and her show at Whitespace is a reminder of her seriousness of purpose and talents as an expressive painter.

Her New Zealand background is used in one of the major paintings on show, Hine Nui Te Po, which is concerned with the Maori myth about the endeavour of Maui to overcome death by re-entering the body of the Earth Mother.

His effort failed when the laughter of the fantail caused the mother of all things to contract her thighs and strangle the demi-god. The myth is not so much illustrated as transposed to a rich tangle of thickly worked paint which is impressive in itself.

In one part of the swirling mass of emotionally driven colour, an eye stares out and Maui's form can barely be perceived in the riot of energy. This is opposed to a rich green mass that shades into darkness. Above the conflict is a hovering flutter of the feathered tail of the wayward spirit that works between elemental forces.

The potent combination of colour, brushwork, symbolism and dream-like atmosphere also give power to Filthy Lucre and the surreal, self-regarding Struggle Between Ambition and Security.

These paintings have many layers of meaning. They involve the creation of a chimera - an imagined beast with strange features that has aspects of human personality.

In Filthy Lucre a giant eagle with a wicked eye reigns over a polluted world of chimneys and guards a hoard of gold. It is a dramatic painting and gives a forceful visual equivalent of forces in society.

The other chimera is more individual. It is a tense, foxy beast that struggles with the ambiguous fruit produced from its own body as a tree, like the Tree of Knowledge. The fruit suggest apples, as well as hearts stained with blood. They are both benevolent and dangerous and born from within. It is this emotional complexity that makes this imagined creature a powerful symbol of the human condition.

Lavatory paper as material and subject characterises the exhibition by Richard Maloy at the Sue Crockford Gallery. The show is entitled Nothing Nothing Something, which might be taken to mean that a couple of sheets of the most unregarded paper can be made into something that might pass as art.

The toilet paper is arranged on a dark background, photographed, then elegantly framed. The works are in a series, like variations on a theme in music. First there is one sheet, then two sheets together, then two sheets apart, three sheets, now up, then down, and finally compositions of four sheets.

The paper is plain tissue with a delicate ribbing running through it and, of course, a deckled edge where the sheets have been carefully torn from the roll. Precision and a kind of elegance are conferred by the presentation.

Nevertheless, superficially this is a series of utterly conventional geometric abstractions. Only the material gives it a frisson elaborated in a scholarly commentary by Allan Smith. He quotes Dominique Laporte who, in turn, quotes the philosopher Immanuel Kant as saying, "The beautiful doesn't smell".

The show and its commentary are witty but as art, the show is slight.

Flowers and Crowns by Virginia Leonard at Oedipus Rex relies entirely on colour, painterly attack and vague references to the language of flowers.

Her paintings have big splodges of bright colour with no particular form allowed to run in drips down the canvas. One work, Heartsease, gains force because the work has been laid on its side so the drips run down at an angle.

Otherwise there is little to characterise one painting more than another. Tiger-flower has fierce colour, largely red. Touch-me-not is drawn to one side of the canvas, while Hyacinth is notable for shades of blue.

Yet the randomness of the application of the paint, and the lack of rhythm or tension leaves the viewer with few visual guides to what is intended beyond exuberance.

The accompanying commentary explains there was once a secret code of flowers for sending messages of unspoken emotion. The messages of these paintings are difficult to decode.

It is hard to read the witchcraft into Enchanter's Nightshade that we are told is the underlying meaning. This is one show where the paintings would be completely unintelligible without the titles.

There is a big showcase called "Window" in the foyer of the University of Auckland Library, which offers student artists the chance to show their work, or guest curators their ideas.

The current installation is particularly fine. Curator Simon Esling is an artist himself, and in this small show called Dark Matter he has assembled the work of an established veteran, a much admired younger artist and a newcomer.

It is a chance to see an excellent example of Bill Hammond's surreal evocation of colonisation, conveyed by delicately decorated birds, and creatures with horse heads, playing billiards for the landscape. Elsewhere, a frenetic dance hints at a future state.

Peter Madden combines a myriad delicate colourful images in his sculptural clusters and Andre Tjaberings paints a visionary architecture that gives out a feeling of ruin and decay.

Group exhibitions are usually unsatisfactory mixes but this small group brings together disparate expressions in a tellingly coherent way.

For gallery listings, see www.nzherald.co.nz/go/artlistings

AT THE GALLERIES

What: Paintings and ceramics, by Alexis Hunter
Where and when: Whitespace, 12 Crummer Rd, to July 18
TJ says: Images of considerable imaginative power and vigorous painting by veteran expatriate artist.

What: Nothing Nothing Something, by Richard Maloy
Where and when: Sue Crockford Gallery, 2 Queen St, to July 18
TJ says: Exhibition of conventional, though elegant, geometric abstraction where the use of toilet paper as medium is supposed to give a witty piquancy to the endeavour.

What: Flowers and Crowns, by Virginia Leonard
Where and when: Oedipus Rex Gallery, Khartoum Pl, to July 18
TJ says: Colourful dashes of paint, apparently random but intended to convey the coded messages of flowers.

What: Dark Matter, by W. D. Hammond, Peter Madden, Andre Tjaberings
Where and when: Window, Foyer University Library, to July 24
TJ says: Small exhibition by three artists of stature working in dark surrealism. It makes good use of a showcase space that stimulates awareness of current trends.