Joyous loops and splashes of colour

When artists are called "painters" it is generally expected they will use oil paint on canvas. This week we have a number of painters who confound our expectations.

At the Antoinette Godkin Gallery, Andre Hemer is certainly working on canvas and his works look like the lively paintings he has shown there in the past - with apparently improvised joyous loops and splashes of colour. They are also described as "acrylic on canvas" suggesting acrylic paint. But in fact they only show traces of paint here and there.

The show is called The Real Bad Painter, And The Story Of Everything in Real-Time which implies the paintings break the rules and refer to nothing outside of the works themselves. For the most part they are made from vinyl ribbon slashed in a way that gives the effect of spontaneity, though the effects have probably been carefully thought out.

The gain for the artist is that because of the vigorous cutting technique, everything has sharp, exact edges and points. The loops and twists and turns, though they are abstract and defy analysis, have great energy, particularly in the large works. The small paintings have a blotted area in the centre with linear activity around it, as in Biggie does Faberge.

Larger paintings, especially the two round paintings, have a more open centre that cavorts better with the surrounding zoomings-about. The outstanding one is called Ante-up! Turn-down! Get-in! Work-out! It has an edgy fluttering form in the centre and the effect is lyrical and joyous.

The joyousness is allied to the high-key colour that comes from the acrylic plastic tape laid over raw canvas which provides a pale background. The possibilities of the medium are exploited beyond the paintings themselves by exhibiting them on a wall vividly decorated with vinyl stripes. The bright colour is steadied by black stripes at intervals. The whole makes a spectacular show.

At Ivan Anthony, Rohan Wealleans uses paint but does not paint in the traditional sense. He has established an outstanding career by painting layers on a surface, then mining through the strata to make shapes assembled into works in a style he has made his own.

The work can be sculptural. In this show there are two hemispheres called Cut Balls. They are the halves of one sphere that was filled with layers of paint - some plain and others mixed with chips of varying colours. The sphere was divided and its interior revealed as an immensely complex structure both sculptural and geological.

These pieces are eclipsed by Silver Link, a work that covers two walls. Here canvas comes into its own again because the work is made up of 600 little rectangles of canvas with direct reference to a work by John Reynolds shown in Sydney and now in Te Papa. In Reynolds' work each tiny canvas is decorated with an expression from a dictionary of New Zealand slang. In Wealleans' work there are no words but each canvas carries a thick little abstraction made up of his thick, dried paint. The artist's imaginative use of pattern, composition and colour is amazing.

The thick paint, when assembled as a series of little hillocks, has textures far beyond the usual. This provides the grotesque element often part of the artist's work. Seven works are called Study for a Brainy Painting. In each one different patterns of raised mounds of paint have a sense of the surface of the brain as well as hints of the organisation of layers of memory. They are visually intriguing close up and from a distance.

On the whole they are more effective than the bigger works which do not break away from the desire to present an image that comes closer to conventional picture making. The elaborate assemblages of Rocky Rambo and Punk Suck have shock tactics that rely on subject as much as the special technique.

Some work is best done on paper which lends itself to watercolour and ink. These are usually best seen close up. The watercolour and ink paintings by Simon Esling at the Anna Bibby Gallery certainly reward close scrutiny because of the astonishing fine detail.

Esling specialises in drawing half-track trucks, traction engines and quaint rubber-tyred vehicles. One work includes a fascinating drawing of a steam-powered lorry. Drawing is the appropriate word because much of the work displays a fine quality of line. This quality links the beautifully drawn trucks with anatomical diagrams of musculature. These flayed limbs lead to houses drawn in exact perspective. Yet these flawless subjects are carefully illuminated with watercolour and the same medium provides beautifully painted cloudy backgrounds. Furthermore, abstract areas of paint and ink are a visual delight with their rich colour and intriguing patterns.

The questions remain: What does it all mean?

Are these a virtuoso display and nothing more?

Certainly there is a surreal effect as objects from different times and places are delicately hooked together but the painting does not have a dream-like quality usually associated with surrealism. It seems to speak more of memory than dream. The effect is of an exalted scrapbook where the pages are in themselves visually fascinating. The final effect is generous and sharing.

Gallery listings.


AT THE GALLERIES
What: The Real Bad Painter, And The Story Of Everything in Real-Time, by Andre Hemer

Where and when: Antoinette Godkin Gallery, 28 Lorne St, to Aug 2

TJ says: Exuberant, joyous abstraction made sharp and apparently spontaneous by the use of vivid tape rather than paint by a rising young artist.

What: Rogue, by Rohan Wealleans

Where and when: Ivan Anthony Gallery, 312 Karangahape Rd, to July 25

TJ says: Further developments in Wealleans' layers of dried paint now used with enough confidence and imagination to make sculpture and a work made up of 600 small paintings.

What: Constructs, by Simon Esling

Where and when: Anna Bibby Gallery, 226 Jervois Rd, to Aug 2

TJ says: Extraordinarily detailed, accurate drawings of trucks, houses and anatomy allied to the variety of effects watercolour can produce to create a highly individual style.