They include a caught bird, a preserved head with moko and a Maori carving like a feather box alongside some polished geometric shapes. Presiding at the top is the dark shape of a mountain and at the bottom is a series of targets as symbols of identity.
After the fine beginning, the second panel, Diamonds and Circles, is more confused. A plant in a pot is an image Cotton has made his own, showing transference of alien vegetation. The principal shape is a large diamond filled with geometric shapes in bright modern colours. They are set among gestural strokes of paint seeking form. The mountain appears again but is suppressed to the bottom of the work.
The third panel, SEE.R, has a rectangle of colour that frames a section of the dark, turbulently driven clouds that are the background unifying the whole work. In the next panel a frame contains a full-rigged ship and the mountain is again a presence. The fourth and the most powerful area develops the motif of ancestral heads with moko. They have been used with great force in Cotton's paintings and here there are 14. They float in space with dead tree branches and overwhelmingly suggest the past, but every head is masked by the present in the forms of shapes in bright colour that obscure their features.
The fifth panel is dominated by a big speaker. The circular shape with its dark centre also recalls the control of an iPad or some large signal. Poised on an inadequate stand, it is crowned with a small landscape with a rich little sampling of the colours of our hills. Beneath this broadcasting device are hints of fellow painters in a chain that references the work of Peter Robinson and a deer that is part of a work by Michael Parekowhai. One of the birds, which are constant features in Cotton's work and usually represent free spirits, is fixed on a stand like a museum exhibit. Much of the past is extinct but the present has fertile realities. Significantly, this panel is called Staging Post.
The entire work has a scale and complexity that shows the strength of the painter's thoughts about interactions between our cultures. It is not yet the grand masterpiece Cotton is capable of but it is a telling account of his journey so far.
Not all artists are so ambitious. The work of Jill Sorensen at Whitespace is called Avoiding Mastery. As well as the five highly decorative paintings of horses that are the major part of the show, three small books of drawings often include tiny pieces of collage. These are delicate and amusing. Notes written by the artist and like-minded friends accompany the books. This commentary calls for a vernacular art of "the stupid, the obvious, simple, pointlessly, pleasurable, silly, excessive, lazy, expedient and useless". The charm and latent energy of the show that is seen in L.O.V.E., with a horse and flowers in front of a shower of emotion, rather contradicts these humble claims.
Another idiosyncratic show is at the Railway Street Studios. In Dark Light, Gabriel Heimler and Anna Proc work together.
The show is a satirical commentary on society with stereotypical figures engaged in fashionably decadent activities. There are also paintings of young women, nude except for their boots. Everything is bounded by a twisting, lively line. For all the affected decadence the best painting is the straightforward NZ Colours with the Cuba St fountain prominent.
For gallery listings, see nzherald.co.nz/arts
