All that glitters is not gold

By T.J. McNAMARA

Wallpaper sometimes keeps exalted company. In his Critique of Judgement the philosopher Immanuel Kant claimed three of the most beautiful things in the world were military march music, hummingbirds and wallpaper patterns.

There are two shows this week that refer to wallpaper.

First: the paintings of Reuben Paterson at the Gow Langsford Gallery until May 31. The opening was a glittering occasion, the glitterati were there in full force and the paintings glitter, too. They are all done in glitterdust and sparkle like the dew.

This is where we are at: post post-modern, clever, kitschy paintings. Paterson is a leading light in that most sought-after of styles: a synthesis of Maori and European. The tidily made works are as brash as advertising.

In the past, Paterson painted kowhaiwhai patterns that are usually found on the rafters of a wharenui, but he painted them on canvas in celebratory glitter. What he made of the patterns was pretty wall-decoration, though much more was claimed for them. This show is closer to real paintings. The patterns, derived from wallpaper and fabric designs, are more varied. There are unexpected beginnings and terminations that increase the tension of the work.

Titles such as I don't understand why you won't wear my knickers? or Who do I have to shag to get out of here? are linked to ambiguities in the design or dead ends in the patterns and also, according to the work commentary, the artist's family.

The titles are an ironic comment on the patterns assembled on the canvas. Assembled because the work is not painted in any usual sense but made of sharp-edged cut-outs layered with glitterdust.

A title that mentions India is a cue for a pattern taken from a baroque Indian fabric that perhaps the artist's grandmother used to wear. I don't want conversation, I just want ejaculation is an involved wallpaper pattern of green and white curves enclosed in line. The curves go nowhere.

Everything is so smart, so clever, so mocking, so ironic. The Pubic Hair of Hinenuitepo is a corny image of palms, a full moon and clouds that might grace a cheap cafe but is surely naive mockery of the great goddess of the earth and death.

Only a young artist could create such clever rubbish. There is evidence of talent and purpose in carrying through such an exhibition; let's hope the possessor of these elements grows up soon.

Another response to wallpaper is seen in Bill Riley's work at the Vavasour Godkin Gallery until June 14. In his paintings the wallpaper is buried behind sheets of translucent acrylic and patterns that show through are picked out on the work surface. One work is painted directly on textured wallpaper.

The effect is rich and strange. An example of the best of the work is Empire, a tall painting with a repeated rococo pattern which sometimes emerges and sometimes fades. It glows with colour and a hint of mystery.

Sometimes the surface is almost transparent and the colour almost uniform and dense, as in the bold orange of Deluxe. Sometimes the surface colour is allowed to drip from just hints of the pattern so you get Bleeding Hearts. And sometimes the paint runs the red of arterial blood and the patterns are raised in relief as in Hush.

These paintings are complicated in the response they evoke. They play games with our perceptions of the source of art and visual delight as well as doing the Modernist thing with ready-made material.

They are not just ornamental as wallpaper is. They even attack the idea of ornamental patterns, but what they stand for in positive terms beyond the appeal of surface and colour is hard to determine.

A lively show at the Lane Gallery this week shows us the way we were when artists invented shapes rather than borrowed them from the wall.

We see surprisingly little Australian art in Auckland and on the evidence of this show of two Australian printmakers combining with Auckland master printmaker Rodney Fumpston, more's the pity. Dean Bowen's dopey birds are colourful, witty shapes and Margie Sheppard draws magic from soft, submerged faces and creatures. Rodney Fumpston's contribution features ferns and the marbled surface of memory. It is a singularly attractive show.