KEY POINTS:
Surfaces can be something to paint on or paint about. Rona Ngahuia Osborne, whose Wahine exhibition is at the Lane Gallery until April 12, uses special surfaces. Her work is appliqué collage and the surfaces on which she applies her images are recycled woollen blankets with pale faded stripes. She is aware that at birth, in sickness and in death we are often embraced by blankets.
She adds to the blankets cut-out, stylised, Maori-inspired motifs of hearts, tongues, mouths and appealing hands and, above all, tears. Areas of light and dark also play a part in the quiet drama of the work.
The effect is touching and the careful hand stitching that joins the images in these works makes them intimate. Not too long ago, hand stitching was thought to be particularly appropriate to women's art but here the handiwork is an integral part of the work.
A typical piece is the one that gives its name to the show, Wahine, with a stylised head flanked by tears of pain in red and tears of joy in white. There is a similar construction in Salve, a work of greeting and love where a red heart indicates emotions and a pale cross indicates faith. In this work, as elsewhere, the pale, worn surface of the blanket reflects experience but is intruded upon by a dark, melancholy corner.
All of this symbolism comes together at its best in Storytalker with a mouth stitched in red thread, a strong, dark arm with the traditional three fingers supporting the central part and a pale hand signalling against a dark background.
Not all the work is as successful as the big, complex collages. Several pieces take the shape of a kete to indicate a container of tears or wisdom but are too flat and simple to carry the weight of meaning.
This unusual show has moments of considerable power firmly linked to the circumstances and style of this country.
In Jervois Rd at the Anna Bibby Gallery until April 12, the works of Emily Wolfe painted in traditional ways in oil on linen depict surfaces - mostly badly papered walls.
Wolfe has gained prominence with paintings of windows hung with gauze curtains. The translucent fabric allowed hints of a world outside while emphasising the confining nature of a room with drawn curtains - and were painted with great subtlety.
In this show, the subtlety is extended to the wallpaper within the room. It is shown as badly pasted and coming clear of the wall between drops - or chopped off short of the skirting it should meet. All of this gives the impression that within the confining walls, there has been an effort to make a real domicile of the room, although the only furniture might be a stool or magazine rack.
This, combined with Wolfe's passion for nooks and alcoves, gives a feeling of delicate melancholy; the muted sadness of exile. In the best of the work, like Haunt, a corner of the curtain is lifted to give a hint of colour beyond the room. The mood is established by light in a painting called Terrain where an alcove is defined by sunlight on one wall, half light on another and shadow on a third.
The mood of exile, part sad, part charming, is emphasised by some smaller works of a wooden bird in a cage or of a porcelain ornament far away from the 15th century costume it depicts. It makes a quiet, touching show although with no real departure from Wolfe's previous work.
The work of Barbara Tuck at the Anna Miles Gallery until April 19 continues to gain in complexity. The show is called Calibrating the Loss of Sparrow Hawk, a title which gives no guide to the Fiordland beginnings of these ultimately fantasy landscapes. They are done in an effective technique of dripping, blotting and spreading the paint as well as, sporadically, some conventional brushwork.
The terrain is fascinating, full of little lakes and coastlines, and areas of foliage and precipitous cliffs, yet it is sometimes hard to know whether it is seen from above or from ground level or from a whole number of viewpoints.
The ambiguity makes the first two of the works in the gallery seem awkward but the other three, notably Tarn Blessing, provide a landscape that comes together effectively at a distance but can also be enjoyed close up. The inventive technique is intriguing and pieces of closely worked detail such as tangles of trees and branches make lively passages of imagery.
