Miles better as a gallery

By HANNA SCOTT

A new contemporary art gallery has opened in the heart of Auckland's fashion shopping zone, High St. "It is a little pocket of Auckland that feels urban," says gallery director and namesake Anna Miles.

"I didn't want a carpark-like concrete space and hard, fluorescent lights. Instead, I have chosen a space, upstairs, where I feel comfortable. The high pedestrian count was part of the decision, but also this is a social venture really, all about communication, so the High St location is part of that."

On the fourth floor of the 1967 Canterbury Arcade building, designed by Peter Beaven, the former office boardroom makes an intimate-sized gallery, with brick walls and softening carpet on the floor. The idea for the gallery crystalised during Miles' Himalayan adventure in May.

"It's something I have wanted to do for a long time, and it brings together a lot of my interests. I am enormously interested in the ways artists engage with their work. It's perhaps part of my background as a teacher that I am so interested in the way people interact with art.

"I want people to feel comfortable here, to have fun with it, and to make connections with the work. That's one of the reasons I am planning a high number of group shows."

In October, Miles curated an exhibition of work by art students - Picture, at Auckland University's George Fraser Gallery - and she candidly describes the show as "research".

"I am interested in younger artists. The gallery will show a range of contemporary work, from the difficult to the decorative and back again."

However, Spring, the opening show, is underpinned by painting. It features new work by eight artists loosely associated in their ideas about freshness, newness, growth and progress. "The exhibition brings together a full spectrum of responses to change, wonder as well as loss."

James Kirkwood's large emerald-green oil painting Ting relocates a faux-Chinese pagoda within a bamboo grove, superimposed over a Spanish garden. His work embodies "the thrill of new combinations" Miles hopes to establish with group exhibitions.

Kirstin Carlin presents a suite of paintings of animals studied in "old master" style from art history paintings. The works include four blue-rinsed samoyeds, a group of King Charles spaniels and a pink mountain lion. The reinterpretation of history demonstrates change in action.

Similarly, the series of eight self-portraits by Isobel Thom describes a process of metamorphosis and change. The grid of black and white watercolours blurs the line between daily changes in appearance and painterly nuances.

Hanging from the ceiling, jeweller Octavia Cook & Co's work Pip & Dave 1967 is a melted down engagement ring dating from the same year as the gallery building. It hangs over the gallery's admin table, poised above Yasmin Dubrau's Finger Cosies.

Under the dome of a bell jar, her 13 finger adornments are made from eclectic materials: knitted fabric, lace, fur, copper and enamel. They are like growths on the end of strange fingers.

Allan McDonald's digital photograph has an ambiguous take on progress. The work is from a five-year project photographing Auckland's urban sprawl.

Jae Hoon Lee's digital video Leaf is a seamless leaf constructed by fusing scans of leaves collected from One Tree Hill throughout the year. The work is accompanied by the sound of cicadas.

Another montage-style work, Kim Meek's Karangahape Jacobethan, is a scroll of voluptuous wallpaper for the gentrified brothels of Newton. This ornate digital print pays homage to 19th-century Jacobethan style.

"Making art is a huge act of faith, it requires a point of view and huge determination," says Miles. "I just have an insatiable appetite for art."

Review

* What: Spring

* Where and when: Anna Miles Gallery, Suite 4J, Canterbury Arcade