In Time Like Glass, by Tony Lane.
Big artwork always has an impact and the exhibition by Stephen Bambury at the Trish Clark Gallery has two impressively large paintings in the main room.
The scale of the works is reinforced by the material and the manner of their making. Both are composed with repeated simple forms on a series of metal panels. Both use rust-coloured iron filings contrasted with painted areas, treated with chemicals to make slight variations between surfaces.
This inventive use of metal panels and chemical effects is something Bambury has consistently developed over a long career to become an essential part of his geometrical abstract work.
The largest work is Here, seven panels that stretch horizontally along one wall of the main room of the gallery. The panels are butted together to make a continuous work; unframed and on aluminium, they are in a close relationship to the wall.
The basic element is a cross shape. The seven crosses are made of a surface of iron filings treated to make a dense, rich colour. The background to the crosses is vivid orange so the work has strong carrying power. The cross shape is symmetrical and has many references beyond the Christian, such as crossroads with the connected horizontal suggesting voyaging. Its greatest merit apart from its decorative power as pattern is in the textural variations on the surface.
It is complemented by Hau, a similar work in seven panels but assembled as a vertical stack. It is more sombre. The image and the background are both brown but the areas around the crosses are more prominently textured.
The show, called Play it again, Sam, spills into three other rooms. All the work is recent yet these abstractions do not break much new ground for the artist and are narrow in their range of colour. The single most colourful piece, ICO89341, which has a startling blue to set off its prevailing black and brown, is a reworking of a piece begun some years ago.
One of the outstanding works is called Ideogram (at Giverny) where the reference to Monet's garden would make you expect colour. Instead, it is a series of interlocking panels that are almost monochrome but lock together surface qualities of smooth burnished aluminium and richly textured white gold. Silver leaf and white gold make up a long series of similar paintings called Fourteen Mirrors, all aided by alchemistic treatment of the aluminium surfaces of the panels. These have the feeling of work in progress but some are particularly interesting variations, notably Fourteen Mirrors (IX), where there is an intriguing decaying of the surface.
What is really new in this copious exhibition is in a small room at the gallery where Bambury shows lively invention in composition. All the works are handsome variations on arrangements of four rectangular panels treated chemically in different ways to achieve a variety of patinas. There is one related work slightly different in form. It is a fine piece in gold and black, showing light breaking into dark, called More on Secret Knowledge. In its precise way it challenges the force of the two big, dominating works.
Another large painting by a veteran artist occupies a whole wall at Black Asterisk. It is surely the biggest painting Tony Lane has done and it recapitulates much of the imagery of his earlier work as well as the idiosyncrasies of his style.
There has always been a spiritual element in his work as well as a special jewelled effect using gold leaf that emphasises the preciousness of his images.
The work, called In Time Like Glass, shows a wide barren landscape with stylised hills that recall the landscape near Nelson. In front of the landscape curtains are drawn back, and a table is in the foreground as well as a tree whose branches support an empty heart.
Coming down from the sky are emblems that might fill and give colour to the empty land.
These emblems are given an iconic quality with gold and silver leaf. Typically they include chalices, hearts, crosses and hands raised in blessing. The idea of grace descending into an empty land has affinities to the work of Colin McCahon but the characteristic jewelled quality created in the wide space as the images catch the light is special to Lane.
There could hardly be a greater contrast with these big symphonic works than the quiet music of the extremely spare pieces by Patrick Lundberg at Ivan Anthony. His art consists of isolated painted pins and small rods of ceramic dipped in colour spaced widely apart on the wall. The effect is minimalist but comparable to isolated notes on a piano that link with silences to make a delicate composition. They require the viewer to think beyond something that could be easily overlooked or dismissed.
The gallery is shared with Richard Killeen whose images, as polished as enamel, show invention, wit and amazing technique.
At the galleries
What: Play it again, Sam by Stephen Bambury
Where and when: Trish Clark Gallery, 1 Bowen Ave, to November 28
TJ says: Bambury's abstractions are given monumentality by being on metal, with surfaces worked on with chemicals to produce special patinas enhanced by gold and silver leaf.
What: Time Like Glass by Tony Lane.
Where and when: Black Asterisk Gallery, 10 Ponsonby Rd, to October 30.
TJ says: An exceptionally large painting by Lane that incorporates his familiar motifs and thinking.
What: No Future Probable by Patrick Lundberg; Three Random Reproductions by Richard Killeen
Where and when: Ivan Anthony Gallery, cnr East St and K Rd, to October 30
TJ says: Lundberg pushes abstract art to extremes by arrangements of painted pins and coloured rods, while Killeen does polished virtuoso computer-generated images in groups of three.