With so many art events scrapped due to the latest - Covid-19 response, a group of us took great pleasure in visiting our local dealer galleries as they presented their first shows of the year.
We started at Tim Melville Gallery (4 Winchester Street) for Kōwhaiwhai, an exhibition of works by ten Māori artists. Greeting us as we arrived was a bright pink, life-size figure, with upraised arms crouching against a similarly brilliant pou, all composed of crochet. It’s the work of Lissy and Rudi Robinson-Cole and is the central pou of a whare they are installing at the Dowse in Wellington later this year.
Another vividly coloured piece by Kura Te Waru Rewiri was composed of eyes taken from cartoon characters – an attempt to get her tamariki to engage with art. Kōwhaiwhai appeared in paintings by Hiria Anderson and glassware by Tracey Tawhaio, and in a suite of beautiful blue ink drawings by Nigel Borell.
Brilliant hues continued to light our way through Grey Lynn, with Anne Shelton’s highly chromatic photographs at Two Rooms (16 Putiki Street), which use complex, smoking flower arrangements to depict the anti-establishment character of Lola Montez (1821-1861). Upstairs, Andrew Barber transforms the space with his painting installation. Pieces of oak embedded in resin created a floor like the flotsam of a shipwreck (the title of the work), while a wall-size canvas slices the ceiling with its Swandri-patterned painting.
Next door at Fox Jensen McCrory (10 Putiki Street), Bill Culbert’s signature fluorescent tubes skewer plastic containers, illuminating them beyond their humble beginnings. They pierce tin cans and a suitcase, and spotlights attached to metal arms shine through window frames. In the office, the bright white tubes shine from two deep black panels, the result of collaboration between Culbert and Ralph Hotere – a very special sight indeed.
Our pursuit of colour brought us to Ivan Anthony (564 Great North Road) in Grey Lynn village. Denys Watkins’ paintings danced between lively, jostling shapes in saturated hues and pared-back, contemplative works. Smaller paintings were framed in flat timber boards, giving a strangely nostalgic yet homely feel to them.
In the back half of the gallery, bright dots of colour pricked the walls like constellations. A closer look revealed polyhedrons and spheres, no bigger than the tip of my finger, covered in densely packed markings. From a few steps back, they seemed to compose a rhythm with the spatial depth of the wall, while up close each held an intense and captivating tune.
There are dozens of galleries in our neighbourhood. Get out and experience their colour and vitality. (EVAN WOODRUFFE, Studio Art Supplies)
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Published 4 March 2022