T. J. McNamara: Reflecting on the nature of colour

Judy Millar painting on display at the Gow Langsford Gallery. Photo / Dean Purcell

Art in Auckland is truly remarkable for its variety and quality. Within the space of one block in the city there are shows revealing quiet, still art; art with size, ambition and energy; and art using landscape, science and assemblage.

At the Lane Gallery Keith W. Clancy is having his third major show. His work is pure, highly refined abstraction. His paintings are conventional rectangles and each is an iridescent field of colour. His palette is special and highly individual. The intense shades are obtained from colours used in cosmetics and auto-enamels as well as pigments carried in acrylic and vinyl mediums. The effect is an unmistakably modern art of colour and response to light.

These fields of colour are intense because they have dozens of layers of paint that make them highly polished and reflective. They also have fascinating properties. The colours change with the light - artificial or daylight - and they change as the viewer moves past them.

A work called wherever, when, is deep green or a profound blue, depending on the angle from which it is viewed. Another work entitled to receive therefore changes vertically and horizontally. It can appear as one plain colour or it can move from deep green to brown as the viewer looks from bottom to top. It becomes more dark and intense as you move past.

Two of the paintings lie on the floor and are seen from above. The most profound depth is in outside where which, although it is hung on the wall, has a green deep as a lake which changes to blue as the light shifts.

These changes in colour do not make up the total effect of the paintings. Some of the works are done on hard panels and they are the more reflective works. Others are done on linen canvas and have a surface with a slight texture. Both styles sometimes have a contrasting colour appearing at the edges through abrasion into the underlying pigments.

What also adds to the effect is the treatment of the edge where all the multiplicity of layers of paint can be seen running horizontally across the edge, sometimes hardening beyond the edge itself. This, and the rounding of the edge, are splendid design elements that solve the perpetual problem in abstract art of what to do with the thick edge of an unframed work.

The whole ensemble of effects work best on medium to large works. The whole is an almost uniformly successful exhibition responsive to changing light, yet still and meditative.

Around the corner in Lorne St at Gow Langsford we can get a sense of the work of the artist who represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale. The general impression is of ambitious size and energy.

Judy Millar is undaunted by huge sheets of vinyl as big as 3.5m wide by more than 5.8m high. Across these huge surfaces she launches swathes of red and black abstract expressionist shapes that are full of movement, occasionally diverted by being blotted into areas of pause, but soon sweeping on again. These do not suggest reaching beyond the edge but swerve within the boundaries of the work to tauten the whole deal into unity. There is also a certain element of wit in the sense of, "Watch this. This twist will surprise you." And it does.

The sweep of these works is aided by the use of an ink medium that flows easily. The smaller works are more convoluted with less movement. Here is a sense of an emerging embryo gradually being defined.

The work as a whole is more open than in the past and does not have the opulent, sloshing waves of colour characteristic of the artist's previous work. The exhibition gives the impression of work in progress rather than an arrival.

Around the corner again at the John Leech Gallery Peter James Smith's exhibition contains arrivals and departures. Smith, who combines university teaching of mathematics at the highest level with his talents as an artist, paints splendidly atmospheric seascapes and overlays these with the formulae of calculations that might be associated with the scene. Tears For Ophelia, with its tumultuous cascade and trees seen dimly through the mist, is a fine example of such a work.

Calculations can make up the whole area of a work. Three large blackboards make up On Writing Mathematics and a huge equation is painted, complete with crossings-out and smudged areas. The equation is an important achievement made in the course of Smith's work. Few people could follow the maths so it works as an abstract exploration of mark-making in the course of teaching - an apotheosis of the lecture room.

The artist's move into assemblage is a denial of the skills that created impressive sunset seascapes. The idea is clear when a mass of books, all referring to the 18th century Enlightenment, is stuck on two huge doors and splashed with black. It recalls William Blake's phrase about "the doors of perception" being opened but it cannot match the skill of the more conventional works. Nor can the books and literary quotation that make up Rutherford's Library.

Smith's exhibitions always supply plenty of food for thought but it is the vivid nocturnes of sea and setting sun that touch the heart.

Another work that is all idea rather than technique is Block by German-based artist Daniel Knorr at Artspace. The exhibition is a collaboration with prisoners at Paremoremo. There are some paintings by inmates but the major works are a video of prisoners' hands playing unfamiliar orchestral instruments. Spectacularly, the same instruments are locked in a large cage in the centre of the gallery. The staff will unlock the cage so you can play the instruments but only if you have no musical training. The aim is to make you feel awkward in a situation where some privileged others can cope.

It smacks of exploitation of both public and prisoners.

At the galleries

What: (T)HERE by Keith W. Clancy
Where and when: Lane Gallery, 33 Victoria St East, to Nov 28
TJ says: Extreme abstraction with rich colour fields that change with the light and the position of the viewer.

What: New Works by Judy Millar
Where and when: Gow Langsford Gallery, 26 Lorne St, to Dec 5
TJ says: Ambitious, swooping abstract paintings done with lots of verve and the bigger the better.

What: Histories Reprised by Peter James Smith
Where and when: John Leech Gallery, cnr Kitchener and Wellesley Sts, to Dec 4
TJ says: Works derived from an intersection of painting, mathematic history and literature at best when technique rather than found objects supports the mix.

What: Block by Daniel Knorr and prison inmates
Where and when: Artspace, 300 K Rd, to Nov 28
TJ says: Sculpture and film made from the struggles of prison inmates with art and improvisation as symbols of a world they are separated from; a chance for the viewer to share the alienation.