The galleries: Thin little images keep their secret

By T.J. McNAMARA

A reviewer can be puzzled, "Have I missed something? Is there something I can't see?" The work of Saskia Leek, which is at the Ivan Anthony Gallery until May 1, is exactly the sort of exhibition that provokes such questions. Aptly, the exhibition is titled, The Secret of Invisibility.

Leek has established a national reputation. Approving critics sometimes say things such as, "Her work drags us kicking and screaming back to primary school." It makes one wonder whether we want to go back there, but the undeniable fact is that this artist's work is admired by critics and curators, and their admiration is reinforced by the way the exhibition with its 20 inert little paintings is almost entirely sold out.

These little paintings in pastel colours lack tension and vigour. Their subjects are banal, the drawing is deliberately and self-consciously naive. They break no new ground. They look amateur and, truth to tell, the primary school is not far away. There is an element of children's art in all of this.

There are no people in these paintings. They represent a pink, nostalgic dream of the past: a white horse galloping under trees, mountains reflected in a lake, a little house with a little wall around it, more houses with little windows and little doors and some little flowers in the foreground.

These works are so sentimental that they provoke the thought that they must be ironic. Surely these sweet little pictures are taking the mickey. If they are not, then are they a patronising curl of the lip towards popular taste?

The world they evoke is exactly the world of some retro pop groups such as The Brunettes, who sing about "Holding hands and feeding ducks". Like the music the painting is a still, small, lyric expression, very thin but perhaps fashionable.

Is the unknown ingredient pure fashion?

Connections between art and music were a cliche last century. In the first decades, Kandinsky saw music as colour and it led him to make the first abstract expressionist paintings that relied entirely on colour harmonies.

There were other contemporary experiments, some by composers such as Scriabin who devised a colour organ to go with his music.

Nevertheless, the essential difference between art and music is that painting is still, monumental and static while music is continually ongoing. It develops and changes throughout the length of the piece. This changing and evolving movement still fascinates visual artists who still devise installations that continually change while remaining thematically constant.

At Starkwhite Gallery until April 27 Stella Brennan has created such an installation using patterns generated on computers from audio impulses. It is a distinct improvement on her 50-minute, Stains on the Snow piece about the Erebus disaster on show at te tuhi at Pakuranga.

The piece at Starkwhite is entered through a maze. At the centre is a square area with white walls. The images projected on the walls are abstract but in continual movement. Apart from the times they burst into flowers, they recall the swirl of traffic at night. This impression is reinforced not by music but by a distorted voice reading from J.G. Ballard's horrific novel Crash.

The effect is like kinetic wallpaper, but it is a very effective work. The seams and the mechanics of it are much more on display than they are in similar pieces by artists such as Olafur Eliasson. It is clever and intriguing but something less than "visual music of the highest graphic integrity and psychic relevance" that the publicity for it claims.

Another way of linking art to music is to paint variations on a theme. At the nearby Michael Lett Gallery until May 1, Jan van der Ploeg has a show that is entirely based on one form which he calls, The Wave, although it is more a looping meander than a wave.

The whole dozen or more works in the show utilise this looping shape, but they all have different coloured backgrounds and the loop itself is sometimes striped in varied colours. There are two principal versions, a bigger one on canvas and a smaller on card. One version is played on the violin, as it were, the other on the viola. But there is one big version which is painted directly on the wall which is metaphorically played on the double-bass, and is really convincing in its rhythm and its drive. It reinforces the thought that simple abstract art works best when it is big.

In any situation other than a gallery the work by Alexis Neal made from feathers sewn on a surface would surely give hints of movement in the slightest breeze.

The exhibition, on show at The Lane Gallery till April 30, is in three parts. The pieces using dyed feathers are attractively coloured, although the compositions are conventionally simple. More inventive are two woven cloaks made of black builder's paper. The taller one with its mat and shoes has a strong ritual element.

The finest images are a series of very accomplished lithographs which brings all these elements of weaving and traditional Maori craft together in works where pattern, colour and concept all hold together exceptionally well.

Most impressive of all are Ngore Paheke, which is a lithograph of a cloak with ornamental stitching, and Hieke, a cape accompanied by a delicate fall of rain like a blessing.