KEY POINTS:
You don't have to go and see it; you just have to know it is there. Perched on a stand inside a case at the Sue Crockford Gallery is a bright red perfect apple. This is a concept apple, an apple as everyone sees it in his or her imagination. Apples have an extraordinary realm of connotations in association with Adam and Eve, the Hesperides, Atalanta, teachers, the export trade and innumerable other allusions. They are also established as the brand of Concept Artist, Billy Apple.
He is showing this apple as a sign of the further extension of his brand as the name of a newly developed strain of apple.
It is not quite so grand as his earlier philosophic gesture of an apple of pure gold. Its known weight made it a work of art whose value could at any moment be established by reference to the price of gold. That piece had tremendous presence because of its precious material which gave it deep associations with myth.
This apple looks plastic, lacquered and waxy. It is not real but a generic apple. Its stem is not materially different from its body. It is an extension of a concept. It is publicity for the artist but its presence does not command our visual attention. It is the ultimate logic of conceptual art. It is enough to know it is there.
The paintings of Mervyn Williams at Artis Gallery are in his well-established abstract but illusionist style. What is fascinating is the way elements stand out proud from the surface, seeming clearly three-dimensional when, in fact, the painting is absolutely flat. It is a remarkable optical effect achieved with immense skill.
In this show, the effect is reinforced by the use of the circle, a form as basic as an apple, and evokes the sun, moon and magic. The optical trick would be no more than clever were it not allied to luminous colour that makes these paintings at their best powerfully commanding.
They are most effective when they are large, notably in Imagine with its rich gold and the bold crimson of Red Giant. These paintings are tall, shimmering icons of some obscure cult of the sun.
Smaller paintings, still using the circle, are colourful and charming but at times the clever illusion seems just that and no more. When the circle is placed on what appears to be folded paper or ripples like corrugated iron are pushed too much into prominence, the avataristic form is broken.
The unique handling evident throughout Mervyn Williams' distinguished career makes this exhibition a rare and special event.
Gavin Hurley at the Anna Bibby Gallery also has a unique manner. His deft paintings and collages are all portrait heads. These begin as portraits of prominent historical figures, such as Alexander Turnbull and Sir George Grey, but end up as stereotypical figures of officers and commanders of our colonial past.
This quality of stereotype is emphasised by the stylised, simplified forms of the faces with strong, lucid conventions for eyes, nose and mouth. The iconic quality is reinforced by the way the heads sit on collars or tightly wrapped neckties, like a statue bust sits on a pedestal.
Despite the stylisation, the best of these works such as Governor Grey have a special energy because of the flourish of the outline forms. The strong outlines lend themselves to collage, which the artist does so exactly it is at times hard to distinguish the works made with paper from the carefully painted images in oils.
Some of the heads depart from strict portraiture and recall a generic type of commander labelled Captain of a Ghost Ship or Officer with a Ghost Hand. These work by evoking the idea of ships in the past that vanished without trace.
There is also a hint of ghosts in the work of Callum Arnold at Milford Galleries whose West Coast landscapes are layered so an image of the landscape of the present is backed by a more ghostly image of the landscape of the past. Another feature is the curves of road sweeping into the paintings, sometimes obviously in the present and at others ending abruptly to suggest the past.
This device is at its most effective in a painting such as West Coast Corridor where the road curves through the bush toward the dim shape of a tree that hangs over it like a spirit.
There are dim horizons also in the work of Gyu-Joon Yang at the Lane Gallery. His paintings consist of two parts. One element is dark with the suggestion of waves lapping the shore or a nocturnal landscape. It is done in simple swathes of black paint that are sometimes allowed to drip in a way that reinforces the sombre mood. The other half of each painting is a big black gestural sweep on a neutral background. These gestures have something of the energy that New York/New Zealand artist Max Gimblett brings to such spontaneous forms but are more consciously linked to calligraphy. A small, bright egg in every painting suggests new birth.
This is highly accomplished painting that suggests a divided world. They all carry a strong emotional loading of displacement countered by assertion and give a feeling of what it must be like to belong within two cultures.
THIS WEEK AT THE GALLERIES
What: Billy Apple's Apple.
Where and when: Sue Crockford Gallery, Endeans Building, 2 Queen St, to Sep 13.
TJ says: One solitary, big, bright red conceptual apple.
What: Round and Round, by Mervyn Williams.
Where and when: Artis, 280 Parnell Rd, to Sep 14.
TJ says: The veteran artist's painted illusions are filled with light and vibrant presence.
What: Alexander, by Gavin Hurley.
Where and when: Anna Bibby Gallery, 226 Jervois Rd, Herne Bay, to Sep 6.
TJ says: Stylish portraits, salted with wit of the upright figures of the colonial past.
What: Direction, by Callum Arnold.
Where and when: Milford Galleries, 26 Kitchener St, ends today.
TJ says: West Coast landscapes where past and present are overlaid.
What: Fluid Mind, by Gyu-Joon Yang
Where and when: Lane Gallery, 33 Victoria St West, to Sep 6.
TJ says: Moody images combine with calligraphic flourishes as images of a mind divided between cultures.
