TJ McNamara: Between geometric abstraction and realism

Tekapo Abscondita is one of Barbara Tuck's works based on the alpine foothills of Canterbury. Photo / Supplied

Contemporary art is a spectrum that ranges from geometric abstraction to exact realism. Work by two artists this week sits in the middle.

At the Tim Melville Gallery young artist Elliot Collins has continued to develop since his previous show. Some works in this exhibition linked to the past are vivid, spontaneously painted abstractions connected to reality by texts lettered across them.

The outstanding work, The Party, is connected to reality by text across the painting, which says "People from upstairs showering words down on people below". It is a joyous piece with lively dashes of bright colour descending in a vivid cascade.

In more recent work, the lettering is in phonetic spelling which makes it closer to the abstract patterns. Joshua contains an epigram about progress against a spreading wave of colourful lines. Raphael's Grave is a scattering of geometric shapes like glittering, falling ashes. These are matched to the Latin inscription from the great artist's tomb in the Pantheon that claims Nature herself feared she might die with the painter.

The interplay between painting and reality is carried even further in a thoughtful series that match a book, usually an old and obscure volume, with an area of colour the same as the cover of the book. One charming case is a red book, called Instructions to Young Artists, alongside a painting of a red colour-field lettered with "Making Mistakes is Better Than Not Making". There are similar re-interpretations of volumes such as Memories of Maoriland and The Five Colour Method and a blue 19th-century book titled Auckland, The Capital of New Zealand.

All through the show these matchings play a game between the goals of realism and abstraction. It is entertaining in a literary way and in most cases (Doppelgangers a notable exception) also visually stimulating.

Another artist who mixes acute observation with an interconnected composition that loads every part of the painting with interest is Barbara Tuck, whose exhibition Ghosting is at the Anna Miles Gallery. Her work is based on the alpine foothills of Canterbury and each painting is made up of a complex interweaving of glimpses of landscape. The paintings are never a particular place but the details lead the eye on an exploration of each part of the canvas. From a distant panorama of mountains that may be at the top or the bottom of the painting, the eye goes to rock formations, patches of greenery, flowing water, hidden lakes and tumbling screes. The artist makes a painting with strong abstract qualities which nevertheless encapsulate the region's character.

The results may at times seem rather too brown but each work has its individual atmosphere and rhythm, accentuated here and there by bright white patches of unmelted snow. These are paintings that reveal the New Zealand landscape and remain vigorous and modern.

Two shows are completely abstract. One is New Paintings by Callum Innes at the Jensen Gallery. All the paintings have two rectangles of plain colour meeting in the middle.

They contain extraordinary subtleties. Agitated Vertical has two pale surfaces meeting at a black stripe. This is energised with a fringe of red at the edges. The surfaces have achieved their milky depth by being rubbed back. The subtle blush of red and the surface quality are the result of layers of paint worked over.

Innes adds a special frisson that the fluttering edges of this layering are apparent only on one side. The thickness on the other side is plain. There is a slightly different sensation if you look at the painting obliquely from the left, as opposed to the right.

Viewers might ponder on these sensitive effects that have given this Scottish painter a big reputation in Britain or they might just simply surrender to the unusually potent reds, orange and pink which distinguish some of the best of these works.

Veteran New Zealand artist Roy Good has an attractive exhibition of pure geometric abstraction at Artis Gallery. These big, confident paintings are called The Lintel Series and some of them, such as the very fine Three Equal Elements, are columns of colour supporting a cross beam of another colour. Other bigger works are more complex. They all have sharp precise divisions where the colours meet. The colour has elegant harmonies and the surfaces are immaculate. The result is abstract painting that is strong with elements of grace, strength and stillness.

Much more agitated in a style of expressionist realism are the paintings of Evan Woodruffe at Orexart. These are based on photographs taken from the artist's own collections of quaint and violent images. They look like sepia photographs but, paradoxically, close up they are definitely seen to be paintings because of the brushwork.

For the most part they have considerable human interest, with the feel of illustrations to a story. An ecstatic couple run by the sea like a still from the film Blue Lagoon, but here starkly naked. Naked men wrestle violently but their muscular bodies are balletic. A dim vision of a Victorian garret shows a begging child and a bonneted woman whose long dress is conveyed completely realistically by simple swishes of paint.

The whole show is pervaded by a sense of violence and victimisation. People fall from a bridge, or cower naked on their knees, or are blindfolded and bound. But in the midst of all this torment there are some glorious clouds vividly and joyfully painted.

The peculiar combination of unusual process and apparently narrative images makes Woodruffe unique among our painters.

Orexart's backroom holds truly eye-fooling realism in an exhibition of sculpture by Jonathan Campbell who casts ordinary objects in eternal bronze. This time it is electric cords generally with a plug on one end and a bird's skull on the other and perhaps a light to go with it. When the cords are painted, the illusion of reality is absolute.

Check out your local galleries here.