TJ McNamara: Behind the mask of power and position

Some modern photographs often tell a story far more than a modern painting does. The photographs by Yvonne Todd at the Ivan Gallery provide a cast of characters about which you could weave a novel. It would not be a Dickensian novel filled with grotesques but more like some book by Trollope about men with power and standing in their profession, dignified but not without flaws.

The treatment would be slyly satirical yet the characters would conform to the general stereotype of what men in such positions are like. It would, of course, be a work of fiction of characters filtered through the artistic imagination - and this exhibition is a work of fiction. The men portrayed are not in fact, Sales Managers, Retired Urologists, Image Consultants or Chief Financial Directors or any of the other titles given to these immensely dignified photographs.

In the past Yvonne Todd concentrated on the portrayal of young women. They were beautifully made-up, wearing extravagant gowns but their attractive faces always had an element of brittleness, naivete or fear. Their ambiguous portrayal was of the world of expectation placed on good-looking young women and the tensions it caused.

This show is a vision of what the world of successful white-haired, ageing men might be. There are many intersecting elements in these striking photographs. One aspect is that they look official, posed for by men at a zenith before their inevitable decay and death. There is an old-fashioned air of the boardroom portrait. Old-fashioned too is the way a couple of them are in oval frames that might be in the hallway of a historic house.

Such a work is Family Doctor. The man has a clipped white moustache. He puts his hand to his chin in contemplative fashion. He is conservatively dressed, carries his spectacles in his hand in a way that indicates he only needs them for reading. His ageing face is strong but there is in his eyes a fleeting expression that suggests he has looked death in the face and been helpless a few times too often.

Splendid suits, immaculate white collars and expensive ties are employed as markers of class never so strikingly as in Company Founder standing tall and proud behind a leather chair also holding glasses as a measure of respectability.

Where does the satire intersect with this dignity? It comes from the light that shines behind the head of many of the figures and gives them a saintly halo when we know in fact that such people are often less than gifted with grace. It comes from the slightly toothy empty smile of the International Sales Director. It comes from the silver presentation pen of the Chief Financial Officer and from the good-guy open-necked shirt of the Image Consultant.

The truth of this exhibition lies not in what these people really are but the way they carry a young person's vision of the solemn elderly. The feet of clay are never seen but they are mysteriously and very artistically hinted at. It creates an extraordinary gallery of characters.

On the other hand the paintings by Helen Calder at the City Art Rooms offer no hint of a story. They are paint about paint. Such is their nature that they really hover somewhere between painting and sculpture. They are all called Skins and are a tribute to the plasticity and strength of paint. What the artist has done is to take a 125 fluid ounces of paint of one colour and pour it on a surface to make a pool. When the paint has dried it makes a thick skin. The artist has folded this skin in half and hung it on a stainless steel rod. The rod is not thick so it bends a little under the weight of the skin. The curve of the support imparts a gentle landscape to the surface, smooth hills and hollows. The effect is relentlessly, puritanically, single-mindedly about paint as a substance.

Black Skin looks the heaviest and Yellow Skin the lightest, with Orange Skin and Red Skin in-between. The only reference outside the work is a hint of a hunter's trophy but it is no animal that has been hunted down but the essence of a colour. It is a singularly concentrated show but inescapably raises the question, where does the artist go from here? It will be fascinating to see.

The same puritanical emphasis on abstract sensation applies in the work of Andrew Drummond at the Godkin Gallery, which shares the City Rooms. His work is about the abstract sensations of rising and falling. One work in particular stands out - a kinetic sculpture of brass, glass, water, fibreglass, gold leaf and hidden electrics. This work, an illuminated sphere, slowly and mysteriously rises within a glass column. As it rises the crest it carries expands like a flower at the top of the work. Having reached its zenith it slowly descends again and the abstract flower closes until its resurrection. Like all good sculpture it could be magnified in size many times.

Other works such as gilded sticks balanced on a knife-edge and a set of drawings that suggest compression and extraction complete a very stylish, ingenious and forthright exhibition.

The exhibition of watercolours called Lucky by Sarah Hillary at the Anna Miles Gallery is very gentle exhibition. The scale is very small and the paintings are full of a sense of appreciation of the work of other artists. Although the paintings look back at still life by such artists as Frances Hodgkins and Doris Lusk, they tell no stories but are careful collections of details: basins and vases, ferns, and fabrics. One in particular is very fine. It shows a ceramic bowl, a fern and an interior. It is called Still Interior. When there is a push for symbolism as in Tender, based on a flower piece by Rodney Kennedy, the dead colour of the heart shape contradicts the precision found elsewhere in such lovely work as Green Tails.

Much more broad in handling is the work of Grant Whibley at Whitespace. In the past his work has been notable for his anthropomorphic birds sitting in conclave and judgment. There is only one such work here, a solemn bird with one very dead eye. There is also a portrait of the artist Patrick Malone. But the work that really catches the eye is Makuto, done with authority and sharp observation, which captures the movement of water flooding through a gap with the rising tide.

AT THE GALLERIES

What: The Wall of Man by Yvonne Todd.
Where and when: Ivan Anthony Gallery, 312 Karangahape Rd, until September 26.
TJ says: Immaculately presented photographs that present, with a slightly satirical twist, a gallery of stereotypes of elderly men of power.

What: yellow, orange, red, black by Helen Calder.
Where and when: City Art Rooms, 28 Lorne St, until September 26.
TJ says: Single colours of paint unsupported by canvas and hung like skins on the wall make a single-minded statement about the nature of the medium.

What: About Rising and Falling by Andrew Drummond.
Where and when: Godkin Gallery, 28 Lorne St, until October 3.
TJ says: Strong, inventive drawings and sculpture dominated by one kinetic work that provides the title for the show.

What: Lucky by Sarah Hillary.
Where and when: Anna Miles Gallery, 47 High St, Suite 4J, until October 3.
TJ says: Delicate still-life with the details from sources such as Tibetan tea-bowls and pressed ferns, arranged as compositions rather naturally, make small, charming images.

What: Paintings by Grant Whibley.
Where and when: Whitespace, 12 Crummer Rd, Ponsonby, until September 19.
TJ says: Not only the birds that were the artist's specialty but also well-observed, mysterious paintings of sea and shore.

For gallery listings, see www.nzherald.co.nz/go/artlistings