Strange creatures of the mind's eye

Fulopili Heads by Andy Leleisi'uao. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey

Some artists create a territory, a cunningly made little world they populate with figures that represent their thoughts, emotions and ideas. There are three such artists on show this week.

The one working on the largest scale is Andrew McLeod, whose exhibition Ocean is at Ivan Anthony. He creates his world for the most part with traditional oil paint but is modern enough to make the title work a limited edition inkjet print.

The largest work, Crack the Skye, occupies a full wall of panels covered with kowhaiwhai patterns. Against these patterns, along the bottom, he has a line of mixed images, mostly trees with a population of snakes coiling in them. The Tree of Knowledge is signified by an apple in conjunction with the snake, an age-old symbol common to many cultures. It is ambiguous, signifying healing or the force of sin.

This big painting is plain and flat in McLeod's established style but there are two almost equally large works where, in a new departure, the handling is spectacularly brilliant. They are paintings of the wave and surge of the sea.

One of them, simply called Sea, is a variation on the world of the celebrated Swiss artist Arnold Bocklin, who peopled his sea with mermaids and mermen. McLeod's sea has sheep with fish tails, a sea serpent, the ridgeback of a monster, and a gull presiding over all. Not only are there differences in approach to the handling of paint but also in the medium used.

Seascape is equally impressive, with waves flooded with atmospheric moonlight. The sea supports a little boat and there is also a building, an odd sort of apartment block. The sea is splendid but the detail seems arbitrary and disconnected. The same is true of the details in Blue Moon.

Ocean, the inkjet print, lacks the flourish of paint but under its shiny surface an extraordinary scene is created with the protagonists, a diver and a mermaid. The diver pings a laser beam, which ricochets from a tin can filled with a woman and a comic fish.

Suspended in the sea is a circle of sea nymphs choiring the bubbles that rise through the work. The floor of the sea radiates light and the tiny figures of Cupid and Psyche struggle. In the centre is a very modern mermaid. The whole has a highly imaginative Baroque extravagance.

To add a completely piquant contrast to all this symbolism, the show is dotted with tiny abstract paintings without titles but each a deft little exercise in design. What they prove is not clear but they do show McLeod's virtuosity.

At Whitespace, Andy Leleisi'uao, whose work goes from strength to strength, continues the development of his ideas of a cloudy world as an interior monologue.

This takes place inside a head with two profiles. Outside, a populace of tiny figures is produced by the conflict of thought and feeling within their minds.

The figures hint at, rather than illustrate, moral and spiritual conflicts. Many have wings and could be angels or devils. Some have horns like traditional devils or horns that recall those on sculptures and paintings of Moses (see the Michelangelo replica in Myer's Park), where they represent enlightenment.

There is a limited group of colours: black, blue, a fiery red and orange.

In two paintings bands of pale blue are made by letting the paint run. This is only one of the variations on the basic design. Others show compartments, each filled with its own little drama.

The most complex of the works make everything stem from a darkness at the bottom of the painting. Others use clouds of orange as the primal source of all the fiery activity.

Each painting has a lot of detail to follow and interpret. Sometimes these small details can be very striking as in Sipifa'a Heads, where a splendid demon is seated on a rock at the base of the painting.

There is nothing comfortable about this copious work but it certainly has an enigmatic power and scope for individual response to the meaning of its figures' weird dance.

Shakespeare has inspired many artists. One of the greatest of these was Henry Fuseli in the late 18th century. The third floor of the Auckland City Library is home to a splendid display of Shakespeare editions that are the library's greatest literary treasure. It is accompanied by a painting by Fuseli, as well as a set of the famous mezzotint prints made from his paintings, which were part of Britain's Shakespeare Gallery, sponsored by the publisher John Boydell about 1796.

In A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare created a magic world and in his illustrations to this play, Fuseli peopled it with amazing characters, made at the height of his powers. The fairy king and queen, Titania and Oberon, are truly nature deities, shown naked and luminous.

A mischievous Puck brings the ass's head for Bottom. Accompanying these major figures are crowds of attendants, elves, hobgoblins, dwarves, strange, and sometimes ugly, fairies.

The 20th-century sprinkling of Disney-dust disarmed the fairy world of its power but Fuseli knew that fairies could be dangerous and the trolls he peoples the forest with have a peculiar intensity.

Unusually among illustrators of A Midsummer Night's Dream, he recognised the powerful erotic charge in the play. These creatures, snuggling their head between the ample bosom of an attendant or creeping under her skirts, recognise the sexual charge that runs through this forest world. It is a great addition to a fascinating exhibition of the city's treasure.

At the galleries

What: Oceans, by Andrew McLeod
Where and when: Ivan Anthony, cnr East St and K Rd, to April 25
TJ says: Big works populated by a variety of surreal figures, with some seascapes painted with dazzling skill contrasted with tiny abstractions.

What: Le Oneva - Misunderstood Aitu, by Andy Leleisi'uao
Where and when: Whitespace, 12 Crummer Rd, to April 18
TJ says: Turbulent, colourful paintings which feature processions of hectic figures dancing in and out of the mind where no frangipani grows.

What: Illustrations to A Midsummer's Night Dream, by Henry Fuseli
Where and when: Auckland City Central Library, 3rd floor, to June
TJ says: This display of the library's treasured editions of Shakespeare is enhanced by mezzotint prints made from Fuseli's paintings. The most notable are erotic visions of Titania and Oberon and their attendants.