TJ McNamara: Purity in paint and a comic romp

Helen Calder pays tribute to pure paint (left), and Carin Wilson's 'Re-patterning' is devoted to honouring the patterns of nature as seen through a Maori temperament. Photos / Greg Bowker, Dean Purcell

There is an old saying that the fox knows many tricks and the hedgehog just one. This week there are two shows that are exactly like this comparison.

At the Antoinette Godkin Gallery is an exhibition by Helen Calder called In Front, Behind, Side-by-Side.

This artist made her name with one technique. She takes acrylic paint and pours it thickly on to a smooth surface and creates a "skin".

In the past the skins have been quite large, resembling an animal skin, and they have been hung over a rod which bends under their weight. They were the ultimate tribute to paint as pure paint.

This exhibition goes further. What were wide skins in the past have become narrow rivulets. The long, narrow strips of paint emphasise its plasticity. They could easily look like strips of commercial plastic, but the irregularly curved edges of the strips give a sense of unmoulded flow. In keeping with the title, the strips are hung in groups, sometimes involving as many as 17 strips of varying length.

The gain is the interaction between several colours rather than monochrome. The loss is the sense of weight the earlier, bigger skins had.

The most complex of the works involves 21 skins, short and long, in a variety of pale colours, making it light and lyrical. Even two skins, one black, one purple hanging together, can be very effective.

Some of the most pleasant have little rifts in the surface, allowing unexpected glimpses of the colour in the next hanging. It all makes an attractive exhibition with the single technique that emphasises the nature of obtaining quietly delicious results.

The fox with all the ideas is Robert McLeod with his romping, copious show at The Bath Street Gallery. The title of the exhibition is The Three Graces Struggle with the Goochi Handbag. The work that gives its name to the show shows three far-from-classical female figures, mostly in fashionably pale colour, grotesquely struggling along in a world dominated by the shapes of big shopping bags. They are obsessed, but graceful they are not.

Like all the large works in the show the figures are cut from plywood and then painted with gusto. The shapes are satirical and the paint applied in all sorts of inventive ways.

These groups of figures - cutout, painted and grotesque comic imagery - for the most part have their basis in interactive social situations.

Another typical work combines two "Myth Makers", big in stylish hats picking at little figures, putting a crown on one and pulling the crown off another. Their legs end in high-heeled shoes that trample around as big as boots. The right foot of one figure crushes a face and blood spills out across the floor in a vivid red flood. Viewers can make what they like of this, but behind it is surely the idea of the chattering classes making and unmaking reputations even as their pants fall around their ankles.

Throughout this vividly comic show is a startling use of colour, sometimes ironically sweet, at other times sharply acid. With the interactive groups are some giant-sized single figures. A notable one is Gog - a huge red totem with a looming presence. Elsewhere is his counterpart McGog, a bisexual monster whose rhythmically waving arms are counterpointed by a collage of real tartan.

The interactions go on and on and fill the gallery; Nurse and Patient shows an exposed patient and an anonymous, bloodstained nurse. Ancestors Looking for a Banana is two apes with a cellphone. Tweety the Bandit combines greenery and a grotesque masked face.

The inventions seem limitless. There is a pale, sad ghost of glamour titled Blue Grace and a strident red floating Banshee.

The only real failure is the single figure Mixed Mickey, which is quite desperately unsubtle and crude.

In the midst of all this large-scale carry-on are tiny canvases done in oil on linen with textures that recall Robert McLeod's magnificent early abstractions. Only here are little figures that are intense and intent. Also on a small scale are intricately cut-out works, about 20cm high, of figures dancing a hectic jig.

The whole show is filled with a ferocious energy, enormous skill and an eldritch imagination. It is uncompromising; viewers will either love it or loathe it.

Further up the road in Parnell at Artis Gallery, Carin Wilson's show Re-patterning is quieter. It is devoted to honouring the patterns of nature seen through a Maori temperament. The materials range from found logs of pohutakawa, rata, rimu and puriri to stainless steel, glass and granite.

The steel is cut to stylised shapes of birds and fish. A shoal of stainless-steel fish swoop across one wall and in the major work, Pouhihi, Ruru and Tapuna-matua, the steel is used to represent fish, birds and creatures that move on the earth. These are allied to delicately polished posts of ancient timber.

The stainless steel, 19 pieces of it, is painted and polished and engraved with a pattern of legs to form a splendid green taniwha. The largest objects in the show pay tribute to the qualities, the colour and the springiness of our native wood. Boat shapes are made from intricate interweaving of fine lathes of up to five different native timbers. The curves of the shape give tension to the work and the sense of the springiness of the wood adds energy. Two works, No Protection and Re-patterning, are the most effective pieces in this deeply considered show.

These three very different shows emphasise the variety of work being done and the same is true of the excellent exhibition of the 20th Annual Wallace Art Awards. They have, as usual, produced a show that is almost a survey of the current art scene and well worth a visit to the Pah Homestead.

Typically, the winning work, made up of found objects, is shown alongside an intense abstract of pure, rich colour, and in another room is a singularly noble work in horse dung.

The winning work, by Akiko Diegel, is a concept work with myriad paper clips and alligator clips confined under perspex covered in the foil used for Disprin tablets. It suggests the grip of untold headaches in life and the possibility of relief. It also makes intricate patterns.

AT THE GALLERIES

In Front, Behind, Side-by-Side, by Helen Calder

* Where and when: Antoinette Godkin Gallery, 28 Lorne St, to Oct 15

* TJ says: The possibilities of thick paint poured to make colourful skins are explored to good effect in hanging assemblages.

The Three Graces Struggle with the Goochi Handbag, by Robert McLeod

* Where and when: Bath Street Gallery, 43 Bath St, Parnell, to Oct 8

* TJ says: A romping, satirical show of vigorous painting on large cutout figures full of energy, which extends to some very small paintings that are also part of the show.

Re-patterning, by Carin Wilson

* Where and when: Artis Gallery, 280 Parnell Rd, Parnell, to Oct 9

* TJ says: A deep interest in nature and concern for its preservation informs some spectacular sculpture using found, aged wood and stainless steel.

20th Annual Wallace Art Awards

* Where and when: The Pah Homestead, 72 Hillsborough Rd, to Oct 16

* TJ says: The three judges, all artists renowned for their complex techniques, chose a simple conceptual statement by Akiko Diegel as winner. The bonus is that this rich award always produces a good exhibition of the finalists.