Nick Atkinson: Verdant setting showcases home-grown talent

Hieke Kaiti by Paulus McKinnon. Photo / Nick Atkinson

Leaving Auckland far behind on the familiar route to Leigh you'll pass a turn on your left, after Matakana, that leads towards a quarry near the base of a local peak named Tamahunga.

That's Omaha Valley Rd and you won't go far before coming across a handsome three-bay barn, the purpose-built Vivian Gallery, in an idyllic location.

The totara-lined valley road sparkled beneath shafts of autumnal sunlight the afternoon

I visited. It seemed the grass was greener in this part of the country. The three-year-old building is simple and classic, the sombre charcoal exterior leavened with well-placed sculptures.

Barry Lett's Big Dog guards the entrance. Round the back the mood is lighter. Decking and generous folds of pasture lead to a pond. On the veranda a ceramic swimmer is braced in a headstand. This stylish, camp sculpture has travelled from the Featherston home of its creator, Sam Duckor-Jones.

There's a burbling atmosphere inside The Vivian as the group show, Assemblage, gets under way. Almost immediately a 2m high necklace of tapering South Island stones created by Chris Charteris earns a red dot. The piece is called Forces of Land and Ocean, listed in the catalogue for $12,000.

Typically, shows at The Vivian feature artists from across New Zealand. The cloak-like hangings of Poverty Bay resident Paulus McKinnon hint at our post-colonial history while Dunedin painter and sculptor Philip Jarvis has fun with his One Hundred Attempts at Making a Mud Ball.

Assemblage runs for another month at The Vivian, which opens seven days a week from 11am to 5pm. Though the entrance and northwestern bay resemble more formal galleries, the other half of the building features work in more domestic settings. There's a library and a stockroom-come-office furnished with classic and sometimes mismatched pieces from the Puhoi firm Hawkins & Scuffell.

"I don't think people realise that it doesn't matter if the art doesn't match the curtains," says the man behind the design of The Vivian, Mike Petre.

When Assemblage finishes in a month, some works will migrate into the other half of the gallery to make room for the next show, Works On Paper, which features pieces by Billy Apple and Yukari Kaihori among many others.

Then comes the playfully titled A & P Show, a range of agricultural and pastoral art that will surely feature some of Petre's eerie paintings of livestock.