The sky is a pale blue that takes on a stronger hue where it falls on the floor of the passenger hall. It is these washes of colour contrasting with the rigidities of the construction that make this image memorable.
The nature of looking and perception is investigated by three digital video projections, a new departure. These are slow, gentle works that oblige the viewer to watch patiently as the camera investigates three objects on a plane surface. All three remain perceptible but each in turn comes sharply into focus, then becomes more hazy and takes on a different form as the focus shifts to one of the other objects. The process gives a hint of poetry to the act of acute looking. The effect is something of an instruction guide to looking at the paintings.
Turning left at the door brings you to the Tim Melville Gallery and an exhibition by Star Gossage. Her work is expressionist and deeply emotional. Colour is symbolic. Every image is linked to the land and to Maori women. Almost all the paintings have a strong autobiographical element. In Never Alone a solitary woman figure is painted with her face and torso a melancholy blue and her fingers drained to pale white. Behind her are Maori wall patterns and alongside a carving offers strength to counteract her obvious stress. In most of the other work the support comes from the company of women either gathered together as a sorority in Marae or in close partnership within a meeting house in That Stairway of Stars Where Your Ancestors Are. Most touching of all is a meeting of age and youth in a landscape where the water of life flows turbulently past in Clouds Caught in the River.
In this and another figure associated with the land, Your Eyes Are Like Our River, arms become elongated and limp to suggest vulnerability, yet this is minor compared to the deep emotional dedication to the friendship of women and association with the land that the paintings express.
The sculpture of Chiara Corbelletto at the Bath Street Gallery falls into two categories. The first is a number of works done in blue and white polypropylene where an open shape is moulded and interwoven in complex movement in space. These modular works come in various sizes, big as in Sixfold Song, to a conglomeration of 14 smaller pieces called Organising Principles Cloud.
The movement through the open space of the shapes is always inventive but the works would have more force seen as single pieces.
The second category, made with fine wire mesh, offers much more variety. Their visual appeal is reinforced by the transparency of the mesh which, from a short distance, reads as a tone of grey. The lively forms with the outer layers of mesh appear obviously related but darker in tone.
The effect is that the inner forms appear to float and the twists, turns and funnels within the outer shape are very lively. A typical title such as Connecting event in a small cosmic space is an apt description.
What: Painting Drawing Film by Jude Rae
Where and when: Fox/Jensen Gallery, 11 McColl St, Newmarket, to December 21
TJ says: Still-life and architecture transformed by colour, virtuoso painting and several delicate videos as a new departure.
What: Marae by Star Gossage
Where and when: Tim Melville Gallery, 11 McColl St, Newmarket, to December 20
TJ says: Earthy paintings of Maori women - girls, mothers and children done with sympathy and understanding.
What: Morphic Field by Chiara Corbelletto
Where and when: Bath Street Gallery, 43 Bath St, Parnell, to December 21
TJ says: Strong sculptural forms that weave and interlock in space, some modular in polypropylene and others shady and strange in wire mesh.
