KEY POINTS:
As the wait continues to see who will win the Walters Prize on October 31, it is good to know there is an excellent example of the late Gordon Walters' work on display. His Karaka II is part of a cleverly curated exhibition called Taking a Line at the Vavasour Godkin Gallery.
The lines in the Walters painting are done with absolute precision. They have the stark polarity of black and white with neither being predominant. As they thrust in from the sides of the painting they evolve into koru forms and their collision produces tension and energy.
Yet sometimes their collision produces the calm of a perfect circle. It is a splendid example of a Walters painting, linked to New Zealand yet international in style and metaphorically reconciling opposites.
Decisive handling of line is often the mark of an outstanding artist and the rest of the show offers good examples. It includes a delicate watercolour and pencil image by celebrated American painter Agnes Martin; a vivid perspective piece by Sara Hughes called Eye Candy; and a solemn meditation on line as wave by Geoff Thornley. The show is also livened by a piece of improvisation by Andre Hemer with a long ironic title as witty as the painting itself.
About the time Walters was coming to prominence, there was a memorable exhibition in 1971 in the Auckland Art Gallery. 10 Big Paintings featured 10 major artists, each provided with canvases up to 9m wide. They accepted the challenge and produced paintings of great power that matched the gigantic scale. The exhibition invigorated all New Zealand art, conferring courage and assurance on artists here and the possibility of working on the same scale as contemporary American art.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of NorthArt, a public gallery in Northcote, a matching exhibition of 10 big paintings by North Shore artists has been commissioned.
The paintings are not quite as large as the 1971 works, and none is as magisterial as Colin McCahon's I Am, but it is still a fine exhibition. It includes two of the artists in the original show, Robert Ellis and Ross Ritchie. Ellis' painting, which concerns Maungarei/Mt Wellington, contrasts two approaches to the mountain.
The historical approach of the Maori is indicated by a palisade hinting at fortification and a richly colourful and instinctive relationship to the land itself.
The right-hand side analyses the hill in terms of mapping, surveyors' marks, mathematics and logic, a hint of piping and reservoir - a European spirit. Line, colour and imagery work together in a massive composition.
A post-modern feature of several of the paintings is the references to traditions of art history. Ritchie's Beach Billboard has angels quoted from a McCahon painting descending on bathers with hair that recalls the 17th-century Spain of Velasquez. A beautifully painted sky is matched by an energetic abstraction framing the main image.
In the contrasting light and shadows of Frank van Schalk's Ministry of Gravity are quotations that refer to literature - Flaubert's Hare - and painting in Puvis de Chavannes' Fisherman. These are mixed with the history of the North Shore - Mulholland's Joinery.
Rosemary Theunissen contributes a vigorous work, Stonefields, which owes a lot to the great German painter Anselm Kiefer.
The styles range from the ultra cool abstraction of Simon McIntyre to the tumultuous aerial view of the West Coast by Clyde Scott.
The exhibition is completed by a solemn family portrait by Sharon Vickers, an expressionist work of pottery and nudes by John Oxborough and a lively colourful work by James Lawrence called Eagle Eye Circus.
This is a splendid exhibition in its variety and assurance, a handsome celebration of two anniversaries and welcome reminder of the quality of work being done in this city.
In complete contrast to the big rhetorical works at NorthArt is the quiet, but emotionally rich, work by April Shin at the Warwick Henderson Gallery. The show is called At Dusk and many of the titles refer to Browns Bay, although looking inland, not out to sea. In these paintings the sun has set, leaving the hills of the North Shore hinterland coloured with the green and russet browns typical of the artist's palette. The works have a textured surface not apparent in photographs. In the best, the texture is matched to the forms and gives life to her solitary trees.
The paintings are dotted with naively drawn symbols for the houses of a new development. This feature and the way leaves dance haphazardly across the surface adds character and charm to the work but avoids what could easily be cloyingly sweet.
This may be Browns Bay but the colour and hazy nature of the images, as well as the swirling brushwork, create a dream-like presence that expresses a warm sense of nesting and home. Among the paintings that catch this spirit best are A House in the Valley at Dusk, where the quaint little house has dormer windows, and Two Trees at Dusk, a wide landscape seen in a haze of glowing colour.
This week at the galleries
What: Taking a Line
Where and when: Vavasour Godkin Gallery, 2nd floor, 35 High St, to Oct18
TJ says: A carefully collected group of paintings that take their quality from line, including an influential painting by Gordon Walters.
What: 10 Big Paintings
Where and when: NorthArt, Northcote Shopping Centre, to Oct24
TJ says: A fine celebration of 10years of NorthArt that reflects 1971's 10 Big Paintings at Auckland Art Gallery.
What: At Dusk, by April Shin
Where and when: Warwick Henderson, 32 Bath St, Parnell, to Oct 11
TJ says: An atmospheric show based on the colours of evening on the hills behind Browns Bay.
