Fine art sometimes needs fine materials. The lyrical abstract paintings by veteran artist Roy Good at Artis Gallery take on a special dimension because of the subtle use of the weave of the canvas or jute that carries their lovely colour.
The artist has been celebrated for his use of shaped canvases that break away from the conventional rectangle. This exhibition is called The Rhombus Suite because it plays poised games with that four-sided figure with oblique angles. There are few right angles except in Rodchenko, a work of darker colour where the hues float away from the edge though tensioned by a marked vertical axis.
Within the long diamond shape, Good makes harmonious compositions of fields of colour fenced by narrow lines done with great precision. The colours are often unusual but always sing together in harmony. In the finest of them the darkest colours are at the extreme ends of the shape, giving balance and tension to the interplay within it.
What adds to their richness is that frequently the canvas is quite coarse and the colours have been delicately scrubbed in some areas to allow the top of the weave to modulate the play of light on the colour. This is allied to the way layers of underpainting modify the surface colour.
Throughout his long career Good has had special colour combinations that are all his own. Within the play of rhombus shapes often sharply defined by a slender red line, he works grey against teal and brown and sometimes heavy areas of dark blue. The colours do not just fill in the shapes but often modulate or contrast at the places they intersect. The result is a stately rhythm but one that offers unexpected delights of intersection that are not part of the repertoire of painters who rely purely on plain colour fields. The whole effect is symphonic.
A typical example is the splendid Rhombus Suite No 5, rich with a variety of harmonised colours. There are other works of equal size where the changes are of shades of the same colour and the whole composition sings with the rhythm of lines. Rhombus Suite No 4 uses subtle modulations of blue and lines of red and green.
Elsewhere in the show are smaller works that use the rhombus shapes as separate overlapping panels to create works in relief. Though the shapes are the same, the optical effect is different, putting emphasis on decoration rather than vibrancy. The whole show has an exceptionally consistent quality within a given style.
The painted-on material also plays an important part in the work of Philippa Bentley at the Lane Gallery. She paints on timber: old kauri boards, skirting and match lining. The boards often have thick paint remaining on them. Sometimes the bare kauri shows through, with an occasional knothole. Some of the boards are fancier than others, with a little bead of moulding where the tongue and groove meet. Some have remnants of wallpaper on them. What do these boards contribute? They add a strong sense of nostalgia that reinforces the insect images fixed on them.
The original insects, butterflies and bugs are exactly and carefully drawn in black, then a silk screen is made and they are individually screen printed on the board. Then they are hand painted, labelled and framed as if they were in a museum collection.
Close inspection shows another layer of nostalgia within the careful black outlines of the insects.
Familiar New Zealand brands from the past provide the colour and nostalgic link - so a collection of monarch butterflies may have their wings adorned with lettering and colour taken directly from Edmond's celebrated baking powder. Of course there is room for the celebrated "Sure to Rise" slogan. The red admiral butterfly in a version that has six repetitions of the work is decorated with the name "Kiwi Boot Polish".
Room is found for the little turning opener on the side of the tin and the word Kiwi itself is made up of the red legs of dancing girls. And so it goes on, delightfully evoking the past mainstays of New Zealand life.
The Puriri moth and Watties green peas are beautifully matched and so are bees with Beehive safety matches and the painted lady butterfly with a comic-book style Memphis Belle from a famous aeroplane.
Sometimes the associations are pushed a bit hard. A wonderful print of the weta which predates the dinosaurs is matched with two little mechanical creatures that might have come from a comic book and are out of place in the context of this exhibition. So too is a stag beetle modified to wear antlers.
The show is called Collections. The paintings framed in cases with their labels and faded descriptions of the insects and their quirky unexpected combinations with manufactured things make for a highly unusual and utterly delightful exhibition.
Today's art is often hybrid. The bright little exhibition by Ryuzo Nishida at the lively Seed Gallery is a case in point. A lot of use is made of the plastic cat with one animated arm that is a good luck charm ubiquitous in Japan.
These figures are used in Cat Dance, an animated video where the little cats tramp like soldiers, hide under the furniture, go through the walls, group and regroup altogether in a very witty way. The same cats tumble off a shelf on to the floor as a sculpture called Unlucky Cats.
A big photograph shows a child and a teddy bear unable to get together because they each wear a big collar. Found objects include a blowup doll tied with rope and suspended from the ceiling. A little man with his face turned upwards climbs a rope toward the overbearing figure above him.
Most scary of all though is a little figurine called Mother and Child where the mother is an adolescent bobby-soxer and the child is still linked by the umbilical cord and the two are fronted by a spiky tree of pain.
The show gives the impression of an inventive talent thrashing around among a variety of media but never quite certain of his direction of thought.
At the galleries
What: The Rhombus Suite, by Roy Good
Where and when: Artis Gallery, 280 Parnell Rd, to April 19
TJ says: Accomplished work by an experienced exponent of shaped abstract canvases notable for subtle colour tempered by a lively play of line.
What: Collections, by Philippa Bentley
Where and when: Lane Gallery, 23 Victoria St East, to April 11
TJ says: Multiple prints of insects made delightful by being cased as museum exhibits and nostalgic by incorporation of colourful material of iconic, brands, books and even shoe polish.
What: Omocha, by Ryuzo Nishida
Where and when: Seed Gallery, 23a Crowhurst St, Newmarket, to April 5
TJ says: Fashionable mixture of video, sculpture, photo, and found objects all expressive of a grisly imagination softened by wit.
<i>T.J. McNamara:</i> Good thinking from outside the rhombus
Opinion
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