TJ McNamara: Plenty of wit but unexpected depths too

She's a Hard Road by Scott Eady on show at the TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre. Photo / Dean Purcell

Some weeks are dominated by a major exhibition while others have a scattergun effect with a plethora of exhibitions in a wide variety of media. The Corban Estate Arts Centre in Henderson has two exhibitions. Typically, one is painting, while the other is photography. The painter is the long-established Kura Te Waru Rewiri whose paintings celebrate Matariki, the Maori new year.

Her art has always been linked with Maori culture. In her career, she has made a stylistic journey from a broad expressionist manner to the maturity of this show which is tightly based on the kowhaiwhai form of the koru. The koru is essentially the expanding fern frond and is linked with the kape or crescent shape.

This form, used extensively in rafter patterns in wharenui, was a source of debate when it was adapted to a Western-style of artistic expression, notably by Gordon Walters. Subsequently, there was resentment among Maori that something special to them had been appropriated.

A lingering hint of this controversy is found in the brief catalogue of the exhibition written by Ngahiraka Mason but she rightly points out the debate introduced much widespread appreciation of the possibilities of the form and brought Maori art to the fore in art and education.

The journey here begins with a 2004 work called Crosses which uses the cross in different ways to convey various happenings and difficulties in life. The basic form is a crossroads shape and the other crosses - Greek crosses, tau crosses and crosses in perspective - are arranged in and around the dominant shape.

Paintings from 2005 and 2006 show a change. The works become bigger, and more rhythmic and confident as they absorb the koru form. Tenei au, tenei au (This is me, this is me) is a rich interplay of sweeping green and brown koru shapes.

The paintings are splendidly decorative but there is more than just pattern in them. In Celebrate the Gifts of Matariki, a passing movement of linked forms rise in a parade on the left of the painting against a dark background. The other side of the work has light, lyrical forms that read gracefully as special gifts. In the same way, Harmony/Disharmony contrasts smooth brown and cream forms with red restless, agitated forms but all as variations on the same shapes.

The ideas conveyed can be applied by the viewer to their own life and experience.

The most recent works done this year are three large, handsome oval paintings called Puhoro Meets the Stripes, where looping koru shapes are contrasted with taut sharp parallels. These fine paintings complete a rich, confident show with a special purpose and flavour.

There is nothing at all comfortable in the four large photographs by Caryline Boreham in the smaller gallery at Corbans. She shows images of spaces with links to state organisations shielded from everyday scrutiny. The spaces she shows may have pale pastel colours but they are irredeemably bleak.

A police custody room is notable for unbreakable tables and benches fixed to the floor. An airport-processing area is equally bleak and a police custody cell is made more dismal by a plastic spoon and toilet roll on the floor.

The only missed opportunity is the image of the gastro unit in a hospital where the sculptural shapes of the ceiling gantries that support the equipment could have been more prominent. These are places most people will never see and they leave a distinctly uncomfortable impression.

The work at Corbans has the air of a final-exam submission and, sure enough, Boreham is one of the finalists in the award sponsored by law firm Glaister Ennor at Orexart.

The finalists are all recent graduates nominated by their art school. The winner was Lucy Hughes with a photograph of a photograph - or rather, the back of a photograph. It is a snapshot that has been stuck into the sort of photo album that has thick, coarse black paper. Subsequently it has been pulled off the paper and two torn strips off the mount remain on the back. This is enlarged so the torn pieces rear up like two hairy monsters. The print is high resolution so every fibre is apparent and odd enough to have a real air of mystery.

The rest are a mixed bunch with some deft and promising painting and, predictably, there is a work that is just text. Laura Marsh has a group of banners that spell out the word PRACTISE in large black letters.

At the Gow Langsford Gallery, the show WORD is entirely made up of works that are images of text.

An outstanding work on the end wall is by Colin McCahon. NRI, Necessary Protection, made in 1962, is an image of spiritual light reaching the Earth intermittently through the mediation of a prophet. Since the letters are the initials of the words written on the scroll fixed to Christ's cross, the inference is clear. The effect is monumental and solemn.

Elsewhere, irony and wit prevail. One of two American artists on show, Rob Wynne, writes Noir in poured, hammered and mirrored glass that brightly contradicts the meaning of the work. John Giomo, also American, writes epigrams in pale pencil. Mary-Louise Browne paints two-word expressions on leather but without the incisive style that marks her words on the stone seats that are a splendid feature in Lorne St just outside the gallery. Iain Cheeseman is self-consciously naughty with his wire words.

All these various styles are found in the work of one artist who has a retrospective drawn from the James Wallace Collection at the Pah Homestead in Hillsborough. Scott Eady's bright pink wooden pick-up truck greets you at the door. He is playing gender games. Pick-up trucks are masculine, this one is even military in style but pink generally connotates feminine.

Gender issues persist inside, with a hilarious piece created as a billboard, She's a Hard Road Finding the Perfect Woman, Boy. There are more serious works such as the completely realistic little boy in a dressing gown looking out a window or a similar boy playing with a model of a rugby scrum. Such a scrum on a large scale where it is skeletons that pack down is probably Eady's single most famous work but the variety of his invention is fascinating.

Humour is a rare commodity in art but this show is more than witty - it has unexpected depths.

At the galleries

What: Tenei au, tenei au (This me, this is me) by Kura Te Waru Rewiri; State-Space by Caryline Boreham

Where and when: Corban Arts Centre, 426 Great North Rd, to July 17

TJ says: An artist takes her heritage motifs of koru and kape and, working with acrylic on canvas, makes them part of everybody's culture, while a young photographer reminds us of uncomfortable spaces.

What: Glaister Ennor Art Awards

Where and when: Orexart, Upper Khartoum Place, to June 25

TJ says: This annual award sponsored by a law firm shows the work of recent graduates with the top prize taken by Lucy Hughes with an unusual mystery photograph.

What: WORD

Where and when: Gow Langsford Gallery, 26 Lorne St, to June 25

TJ says: Local and international artists show text-based painting, sculpture, drawing and even a carpet that use words as a means of expression.

What: Works by Scott Eady

Where and when: Wallace Arts Trust, Pah Homestead, 72 Hillsborough Rd, to July 17

TJ says: A comprehensive show of work by an artist who is unusually witty and sometimes very touching.

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