Layers of paint trick the eye

By T.J. McNAMARA

Art for art's sake was Oscar Wilde's catchphrase, but paint for paint's sake is a new spin. At least three exhibitions in Auckland at the moment address themselves to the qualities of paint.

The most extreme, obsessive and odd use of paint is by Rohan Wealleans at the Ivan Anthony Gallery in Karangahape Rd until April 19.

The show is called The Paint Whisperer, assuming the analogy that as the Horse Whisperer was an expert on horses, Wealleans is an expert on paint.

The subject matter is traditional: still-life. It is also that version of still-life known as trompe l'oeil - designed to trick the eye into thinking it is real and not painted. As far back as the Renaissance trompe l'oeil paintings were notes pinned on the wall, signs and notices with sometimes a flower or a feather added.

All of Wealleans' paintings are such notice boards - albeit elaborate ones. Each has a special character which creates a personality for the person whose reminders it might be for.

The special spin the artist puts on this apparently traditional work is that the paper and objects pinned on the boards are not painted - they are made of paint and look astonishingly like the objects they represent. This is true even down to lists of titles and prices on the gallery wall.

The pieces that make up each work have been made by painting thick layers of paint on glass, peeling it off when it is dry, then painting on the sheets of dry paint. Such a curious technique is all of a piece with Wealleans' last exhibition where he built up enormously thick layers of multicoloured paint, then cut them open and peeled them back to make an opening like a revelation. He still uses examples of this technique on these notice boards.

Technique is one thing and obsession is another. Most of the scraps and shards of paint/paper are covered with tiny text. There are bus tickets, till receipts, notes, maps, directories - all minutely lettered. The eye-straining attention to detail recalls the most painstaking of Dutch flower painters, but the subjects are commonplace and modern.

Also modern is the way some of the boards full of pins also have pin-ups. One board, obviously a young man's, is full of glamorous girls and layered paint/paper that has been delicately opened.

There is a corresponding teenage girl's board, with a faded flower, some valentines and a list of possible boyfriends and their qualities. The largest and most impressive board appears to be autobiographical. It is one on which bus tickets, receipts and the detritus of ordinary life prevail. There are also boards that belong to an animal lover and another to a visitor to Auckland. The range is from utter banality to indecency with some terrible spelling along the way.

What does it all amount to? Cleverness, surprise, an immense amount of work, evocation of certain kinds of people and their lives. The awful catchword is "interesting" but "fascinating" also applies. However, like all successful surprises it startles only once. After that the work is a bit thin.

The work of Ian Jervis at the McPherson Gallery until April 17 also has an element of obsession. It is a variety of still-life but the traditional element is in the handling of paint.

By careful modelling, the painter creates volume and space. On what is a convincingly flat plane the painter creates cylinders and sleeves, some standing like pillars; others cut away as if they performed some specialised function.

They stand in various arrangements alongside apparently deep, perfectly cylindrical holes. Everything is convincingly modelled by shading. It is an exercise in the painter's craft, like a series of excellent teaching aids.

There is an abstract element since each painting has a plain rectangle attached that balances the work and gives it weight as well as being the colour key of each piece.

This manner of painting in series of works that are only slightly modulated from one to the other has always been Jervis' practice.

The result is an admirable exhibition of skill of a high order, but one that is curiously detached and, combined with the subdued colour, engages the mind rather than the emotions.

A dual exhibition at the Lane Gallery by Donna Tupaea and Nigel Borell has dual aims. It presents paintings intended to absorb the attention of the viewer but it also endeavours to link Maori vocabulary to art practice by adapting Maori thinking to abstract art. The viewer can either simply enjoy the work which is full of movement, bright colour and a sense of pressure and path-finding, or try to follow the language/philosophical argument.

Much of Borell's work is done with the fingers rather than the brush, and he achieves long areas of thick, flowing paint intersected by intricate mazes. Tupaea's work is more brightly coloured and gains its force from the way bands of colour press hard against each other.