TJ McNamara: Shows on ice are poles apart

Seated Woman by Sam Harrison. Photo / Natalie Slade

The results of the long tradition of sending artists and photographers to Antarctica for inspiration have been varied. Two new exhibitions from the scheme are poles apart.

At the John Leech Gallery, Peter James Smith has a large show that, despite some oddities, is mostly made up of fairly conventional paintings. His background as a mathematician is, in his usual manner, acknowledged by calculations related to the subject matter scrawled as if with chalk across most of the images.

A variation here is that sometimes the writing is quotations from Tennyson and Milton.

Because Smith is an expansive talent, the larger paintings are the most effective. He shows great empathy with Scott and Shackleton, whose huts feature in the work via painting a sextant and other items that might have been among their stores in the early 20th century. This extends to a group of small paintings set in Victorian and Edwardian frames. The concentration that these frames force on the works robs them of something of the grandeur the artist shows in such splendid paintings as Notes from the Edge of the Ross Ice Shelf where he can show the overarching splendour of the sky on a larger scale.

Yet some historical references work well. The still-life of Scott's notebook with his last words is touching. Also revelatory is the matching pair of paintings that show something of the well-known painting by William Hodges of Cook's ship in Queen Charlotte Sound alongside a version of the image of icebergs that underlay the work discovered by x-ray a few years ago. The metamorphosis of the underlying painting produces a strange image that is both dream and an intense reality.

This 18th century reference to exploration is counterpointed by some works done on neoclassical-style Wedgwood pottery. The ceramics are partly obscured by black paint, perhaps to suggest that the intellectual confidence of the century contrasted with still unexplored areas of the world. This business of obscuring part of an artefact to reveal just a detail works better with the books that are also part of the show.

These veins of experiment in Smith's work show the range of his mind and research but they have far less impact than the grandeur of such paintings as South from Observation Hill, which lives up to the quotation from Tennyson's Ulysses that is part of it and could refer to the painter as much as any explorer.

Grandeur is not what Ronnie van Hout is seeking in his video and sculpture at Ivan Anthony but rather an intense personal introspection. He too made the trip to Antarctica and brought back footage of the interior of some of the huts. In a piece of virtuoso editing he has turned this into the background for an intense re-enactment of scenes from The Thing, a horror movie set in the frozen south. The artist plays all the participants in this reworking.

This autobiographical drama allows him to investigate contrasting aspects of his own personality, emotions and reactions. He is the tormentor and the tormented, assertive and victimised, confident and panicked. He shows a sense of isolation from the world and from support, which can be read as the position of the artist.

Two resolutions are shown. One is when his body is thrown into a pit marked "Human Waste" and burned. In another, at the end of the eight-minute work, a vehicle leaves on a road to somewhere or nowhere.

The second work by van Hout at Ivan Anthony can only be seen through a small window. The artist has done life-size sculpture earlier in his career, notably a gorilla dressed as a human. This figure is dressed in the protective gear supplied to visitors to Antarctica: clothing, boots and goggles. The face is wan and filled with anxiety and, though based on the artist's own features, is deliberately ambiguous. It could be the face of an ageing woman. The emphasis on depression and suffering is underlined by a trickle of blood from one nostril. The whole sense of isolation is immensely sad.

No one else has used the material and experience of the Antarctic in such a way.

Also conveying suffering are two new sculptures by Sam Harrison at the Fox/Jensen Gallery. These are expressive nude figures done in a manner that goes back through Rodin to Donatello.

The thing that makes them more modern is that they are formally related to a specific surface. Curled Woman buries her head on the floor hard against a wall. Seated Woman is on a simple block shape. Both have their heads in their hands so they are anonymous. They are modelled in plaster and polished with wax so they resemble marble. Even so, they cry out to be in bronze.

The modelling is splendidly done. The back of both figures takes its weight and articulation from the ribs where they reach the spine and the bones increase the pathos. The twisting of the feet of the woman curled against the wall is a detail that also adds to the effect.

The expressive use of bones and musculature is also part of the power of two huge woodcuts printed in black that complete the show. Prints of any sort, especially woodcuts, tend to be small images often used for book illustration. These prints are life-size. The shading that describes the light and shadows is created by rhythmic parallel cuts related to the techniques of engraving.

In their nakedness their backs are like a rocky landscape but their general demeanour is of lost souls, their loneliness creased by the dark shadows that accompany them. They have an extraordinary dark presence. Harrison continues to make his way along his unfashionable path with ever-increasing assurance.

Another artist who has chosen his own way of expression is Andrew Barnes-Graham, whose Venuses adorn the walls of Sanderson Fine Art. Each impossibly tall, glamorously gowned Venus stands in water against a background of bush and waterfall.

They are conventionally beautiful but in their stylised, artificial way, solemn when a little more wit and gaiety in the handling might have given them more life.

At the galleries

What: Iceblink by Peter James Smith

Where and when: John Leech Gallery, cnr Kitchener and Wellesley Sts, to June 25

TJ says: A show that combines descriptive painting of what the artist saw when he went to Antarctica, stimulated by intellectual leaps.

What: The Other Mother by Ronnie van Hout

Where and when: Ivan Anthony Gallery, cnr East St-K' Rd, to June 25

TJ says: These deeply introspective works use the Antarctica experience in ways different from the work of any other artistic visitor.

What: New sculpture and paper works by Sam Harrison

Where and when: Fox/Jensen Gallery, cnr McColl-Roxburgh Sts, Newmarket, to July 1

TJ says: Rising young sculptor works in the great tradition to comment on the human condition.

What: Venus by Andrew Barns-Graham

Where and when: Sanderson Contemporary Art, 251 Parnell Rd, to June 26

TJ says: Cool, modern goddesses wearing long gowns solemnly rise from our lake, bush and shore.

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