TJ McNamara: Finding happiness in the abstract

There are three aspects to the perception of painting. The first is that we recognise the power to represent objects and people. The second is that we perceive that painting can convey emotions. The third is visual delight. An aspect related to all three is that we see the painting as a differentiated surface, a surface that has been transformed by art into something different from any other surface anywhere.

In the exhibition by Leigh Martin at the Jensen Gallery, we perceive the simple unalloyed delight that abstract painting can offer us. The delight is in luminous, intense colour.

The two largest paintings in the show opposite the entrance are a knockout. One is a huge field of magenta and the other a field of yellow shading imperceptibly into orange. Their luminosity comes from the soft edges of their surface and, in contrast to most paintings of this kind, the reflective quality of their surface that sets them apart from the wall they are on or any other wall.

Usually colour field painting like this depends on size and indeed the two large paintings are the most impressive but there are five smaller paintings in the show that succeed by the sheer intensity of the colour.

In complete contrast to these almost monochrome abstractions are the little woodcuts by Faith McManus at the Lane Gallery. In these works the earthy colour is adequate but in them we perceive objects, people such as a Maori boy in a cowboy hat holding a succulent snapper in an exactly caught gesture of delight.

The image is simple and effective. It is one of a series where the second kind of perception comes into play.

We recognise emotions in this series of woodcuts, such as admiration tinged with melancholy. This is not the instinctive response to the power of colour, we need a little background to know that there was a time in Northland when the men working on big cattle stations adopted the equipment and manner of cowboys in films. They wore chaps and wove themselves cowboy hats out of flax.

The whole deal was so picturesque it was thought a cowboy film should be made starring these people. That never happened but Faith McManus has worked the idea into these little images that have the effect of rich nostalgia.

They are simple but full of character, as well as exact detail like the expert rider on his hack in Cowboy from the Good Country with his stirrups under the ball of his foot, not his instep.

This small, delightful exhibition shares the Lane Gallery with Lily Laita, whose images suggest the interaction between the spiritual and nature in the figure of a bird goddess oddly mixed with aggression from the modern world in terms of pistols and rifles.

We can perceive this force of emotional imagination linked to the representation of people, objects and animals in the work of Lorene Taurerewa in the back gallery of Orexart. This surreal exhibition is one of the most remarkable in the city for a good while. The works are unusual because they pose their subjects against a white void. Colour is not the point here. The images seem the result of concentrated thought. They are surreal in their strangeness but do not have the usual surrealistic mood of dream. Rather they emerge from some strange world where people and animals interact. They are all entitled Story.

Story 4 shows a depressed angel sitting on a pedestal with a neurotic figure alongside her. They are contrasted with the alert and springy figure of a monkey with a long curling tail in the foreground. It is a contrast between the brooding nature of the human imagination and the instinctive energy of the animal. Many of these stories include monkeys, horses and poodles as images of contained energy.

These images are both monumental and grotesque and yet they are founded in truth and incorporate a singular vision of things.

The perception of art as giving pleasure can include that rather maligned expression of being "very decorative". The main gallery at Orexart is shared by two exhibitions which are at the least decorative and at the most suggest emotions about interaction in society.

The sharp-edged forms used by Glen Wolfgramm give a sense of vibrancy and movement in the incessant rush of the city. In the past, this artist's work has always moved from side to side but in these works there are also reminders of the perspective of tunnels and motorways.

Occasionally the images are shot through with gold and sometimes there is a suggestion of birds in flight and a hint of travelling canoe shapes. Both colour and form can be perceived as not only decorative but also imaginatively conveying the mood of Auckland.

Dylan Lind's work is made up of abstract repetitive patterns of triangles and squares, which collectively make diamond shapes that emerge from their very busy surfaces. Out of this bustling grid of shapes arise layers of colour stamped one on top of the other. The grid controls the chaotic life of these attractive paintings and saves them from a colourful chaos.

The most lively of all is a mainly blue painting with a joyous title I'm Sitting on Top of the World.

The paintings of Linda Holloway called Gleanings at Sanderson Contemporary Art must certainly be perceived as delightful by some people because she has that unusual thing, a completely sold-out show.

The paintings are large and positive in approach. They consist of masses of painterly incidents. These clever and lively feats of painting are pulled together by a rhythm that is not a splash and dash like Jackson Pollock but a bubbly effervescent quality seen at its most fizzy in State of Play.

This work moves from a bright firework burst through a tumble of dark thoughts to a positive vertical assertion. The paintings appear as colourful abstraction, harmonised but with little discords of black and white.

They also feature little dim human figures lost in the whirl of shapes. These add a piquant note to these confident paintings because they make the big circular elements seem very large.

AT THE GALLERIES

What: Paintings by Leigh Martin.
Where and when: Jensen Gallery, 11 McColl St, Newmarket, until September 19.
TJ says: Abstract fields of intense colour beautifully modulated around the edges and given luminosity by an unusual resin surface.

What: Frontia by Lily Laita and Faith McManus.
Where and when: The Lane Gallery, 33 Victoria St. E., until September 8.
TJ says: Paintings by Lily Laita intricately combine nature gods and animals with modern weapons and, in a series of woodcuts, Faith McManus delightfully recreates a time, place and people when we had Maori cowboys in the North.

What: The New Pacific by Glen Wolfgramm and Dylan Lind, New York Stories by Lorene Taurerewa.
Where and when: Orexart, Upper Khartoum Place, until September 12.
TJ says: In Wolfgramm's hectic response to the urban environment and Dylan Lind's repetitive patterns there are traces of their Polynesian inheritance but the dominant characteristic is hectic energy. New York-based Lorene Tauererwa makes images of concentrated power poised in a blinding white void.

What: Gleanings by Linda Holloway.
Where and when: Sanderson Contemporary Art, 251 Parnell Rd, until September 13.
TJ says: Big confident paintings full of painterly incident and bubbling movement counterpointed by tiny human incidents.

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