From the domestic to the truly touching

of Jim Allen's Hanging by a Thread II, which symbolises human suffering. Photo / Richard Robinson

A week with a bit of everything: video, photographs, ceramics and even a little painting. There are even curious correspondences. City Art Rooms is hosting a display of highly competent photography by Kevin Capon. One of the more striking images of an isolated hank of hair is called After the Murder of Amber Lundy. It has a hint of court exhibit or documentary. In the installation called Hanging by a Thread II by Jim Allen at Michael Lett there are four objects on stands - all grim, and one of them is a torn tangle of hair. Here, the function of the hair is symbolic. With it are a bloodstained bandage, a dirty old rag and a tag that speaks of the "bite of rage".

These sculptural constructions are symbolic of human suffering, complemented by a big collage of a worker as Mercury the messenger surrounded by the trivia of comics. There are also some clever photographs and, by contrast, some tedious videos on little screens inexplicably placed on the floor that show the filming of installations.

Jim Allen is a big name here and in Australia. This exhibition is inventive and the sculptures are touching. As a whole, though, it does not convey the feeling and comment intended.

The photographs and drawings by Marie Shannon at the Sue Crockford Gallery are intensely domestic. A photo like Hug Coupon is a little notice that might be stuck on the fridge, "good for one big hug", and she has pastel drawings on paper of double beds.

More philosophical are works like Unframed Photograph, a watercolour on paper that shows at an angle a photograph, and Framed Photograph that emphases the protective corners of the frame as it is packed for travelling. These oblique works show the ritual of art presentation rather than the art work itself and are very thoughtful in their own quiet way.

Another photographer dealing obliquely in human situations is Rebecca Swann whose Fabricated Truths are at Whitespace. She is responsible for a beautiful book of powerful photographs of the world of transvestites in the manner of Diane Arbus. The book accompanies this show of sepia-coloured photographs of situations involving two people. The situations are intensely passionate but there is a distancing effect because the figures are clay models with big lips and bulging eyes. They only become really effective when they have a touch of the macabre, notably one where the couple are in bed with their pet turtle.

This touch of the bizarre also lends force to one of the arrangements based on kitschy music boxes. One of them when opened reveals a model figure of the gay icon Freda Stark as a corpse with hanging breasts and wrinkled, aged belly. It is an unexpectedly chilling image of mortality.

The work of John Papas at Sanderson Contemporary Art with the Proustian title of The Remembrance of Things Past runs to more than two dozen works. They show extraordinary inventiveness in using found objects, canvas work, wire mesh, antique prints, small areas of painting and the ceramics for which Papas established his reputation.

In work after work the combination of these elements in a frame seems decided by whim but is often puzzling though each has a mood of its own. Ladders occur in a number of the works. Their meaning is obscure. Is it a reference to W. B. Yeats' poem where he talks about the poetic ladder beginning in the "foul rag and bone shop of the heart"?

It is not all rag and bone. The bits and pieces assembled are collected from the ground plans of churches, quotations of Michelangelo painted by the artist himself, bits of moulding, copper and brass nails, things a traveller might collect in the way of jade and Asian ceramics. One of the best works is called The Traveller and it is unified Chinese references. A plan and elevation of St Brides Church in London whose steeple inspires wedding cakes has a white ceramic naked figure, a shoe tree and generally evokes marriage and relationships.

Ceramics also feature at Lopdell House in Titirangi where there is a wonderful exhibition called Mountain to the Sea by veteran potter Len Castle. This is craft work that transcends the boundaries of craft and reaches art. Yet paradoxically the most outstanding of these superb works are those retaining the vessel quality pertinent to pottery.

The sculptural pieces based on sea creatures and weathered rock are fascinating but the big bowls lined with luminous glaze such as the blue green of Blue Crater Lake Bowl are stunning virtuoso work.

The exhibition is accompanied by Castle's fine photographs and poetic tributes by leading poets. In the small gallery at Lopdell House you can see a series of delicate paintings by the McCahon House resident artist Luise Fong. This too is linked to the land. It speaks quietly of trees and is appropriately titled How to Talk Tree.

At the galleries

What: Echo, by Kevin Capon
Where and when: City Art Rooms, 28 Lorne St, to Mar 1
TJ says: Competent, varied photographs with one a brown reminder of the transience of newspaper comment.
What: Hanging by a Thread II, by Jim Allen
TJ says: Solemn multimedia installation about suffering that does not quite carry the weight intended.
Where and when: Michael Lett, 478 K Rd, to Mar 7
What: Large Still Life, by Marie Shannon
Where and when: Sue Crockford Gallery, Endeans Buildings, 1 Queen St, to Mar 7
TJ says: Drawings and photographs that make thoughtful comment on domestic situations and the presentation of art.
What: Fabricated Truths, by Rebecca Swann
Where and when: Whitespace, 12 Crummer Rd, Ponsonby, to Mar 7
TJ says: Photographs and multimedia works with oblique comment on oddities of passion, sex and mortality.
What: The Remembrance of Things Past, by John Papas
Where and when: Sanderson Contemporary Art, 251 Parnell Rd, to Mar 8
TJ says: Inventive, boxed collections of many different places and situations.
What: Mountain to the Sea, by Len Castle; How to Talk Tree, by Luise Fong
Where and when: Lopdell House, Titirangi, to Apr 13
TJ says: Superb ceramics by the master potter and quiet evocations of bush by the McCahon House residency artist both speak eloquently of our environment.