T.J. McNamara: Witty work to ponder

Hope by Chris Heaphy.

Six big paintings by Chris Heaphy at the Gow Langsford are characterised by elegant wit but this is not at the expense of a thoughtful purpose. The images are all in silhouette but the two-dimensionality does not take away from their force and collective meaning.

Their vigour comes from the steady advance of everything from right to left, the opposite of traditional reading of paintings. In the past Heaphy has often arranged repeated motifs into effective geometric patterns but here the compositions are more scattered. The effect of the orientation is to suggest that all the participants, men and women, Maori and Pakeha, are looking into the future. They are looking from a 19th-century viewpoint since many of the figures are taken from early portraits.

At the centre of each painting is a silhouette in black, sometimes overlaid with profiles in other colours. These are mounted against a background of sky, usually a turbulent red. Around the central image lots of much smaller images are patched.

Two of the largest works, No Man is an Island and Hope, show a figure on horseback. In the first of these a man is top-hatted and riding comfortably although on top of his hat is a small man with his hand to his head like a lookout.

On the head of the horse is a warrior in a cloak carrying a taiaha. Riding on the horse's rump are a rabbit and a kea, an introduced and a native animal. The enigmatic rider is led by a white heron. Women stand right and left of the painting. One has, under her dress, a feathered head and a tiny church. The other has a pet dog. Birds fly in the sky. Plants grow all around.

There is a bird on the hat of the woman rider in Hope. Warriors are more prominent but so are walking-sticks and a woman with an umbrella, carvings, profile heads on the horse, cave drawings and even a tiny piano.

The other works have only dark profile heads at the centre; three of them Maori and one European, but they all have the same agglomerations of piquant detail. Most telling is View from the Top. On the top of the central head, as if on a cliff, are two figures, a soldier and a settler, looking out over new prospects like "stout Cortez" gazing on the Pacific in Keats' poem. This sense of exploration is only part of the feeling of these intriguing works. There is also a sense of an interaction of beginnings and, in the recognisable profile of Te Rauparaha, a reference to conflict. Undoubtedly they reflect early relationships between Maori and Pakeha yet Heaphy is combining all these figures to make stylish, visually striking paintings.

They delightfully present a situation in our history rather than intense political comment.

There is no direct reference to anything outside the work itself in the bold, vigorous paintings by Imogen Taylor at Michael Lett Gallery but they are influenced by a range of 20th-century styles. These striking paintings are abstractions - bright, busy, energetic and colourful.

Hidden Agenda by Imogen Taylor.

The colour evokes early abstractionists, particularly Kandinsky, and the compositions have more than a touch of the swirling Orphism of Delauney.

There is nothing tentative about these works.

For all their apparent spontaneity they are well-organised. Colours chime and rhyme and the movement dances, leading the eye from one form to another. There is a sense of the sudden birth of visual ideas and the interpenetration of one with another.

One particularly dense and resonant work is titled Empty and Meaningless despite its richness of effect. Another is titled Ode to No One. Yet there is a rich and passionate energy and the interlocking forms have relationships that make Hidden Agenda a rather more apposite title than the others.

Shadows play a large part in Australian artist Judith Wright's work at the Fox/Jensen Gallery. In her previous exhibition ritual objects placed on the floor threw shadows on the wall that were distorted and appeared like attendant spirits.

The Ancestors, by Judith Wright.

This show has three large shapes drawn in black on Japanese rice paper. These are silhouette outlines that resemble shadows. They are full-skirted women who are in turn menacing, dancing and resolute.

The rest of the work is small but equally mysterious. Wright has collected a large number of empty frames of all kinds from the junk shops in her neighbourhood.

They range from elaborate gilded baroque to a hand-hammered Indian metal mirror frame. Within these frames, usually on wood, she has installed outlines of the spirit of someone who might have been in or used the frame.

Sometimes these ghostly shadows are no more than a cloud but always, benign or menacing, they match the nature of the frame and become extraordinary artistic objects full of character. This show is only a small fraction of the artist's output but it is a fascinating glimpse into her work.

At the galleries

What: Natural Selection by Chris Heaphy
Where and when: Gow Langsford Gallery, cnr Kitchener-Wellesley Sts, to November 8
TJ says: Confident cross-cultural paintings filled with a vivid personal collection of Maori and Pakeha motifs done with wit and skill.

What: Paintings by Imogen Taylor
Where and when: Michael Lett Gallery, cnr K Rd and East St, to November 22
TJ says: Colourful paintings full of movement and resonances that hark back to the early abstraction of the 20th century but with an energy all their own.

What: Desire by Judith Wright
Where and when: Fox/Jensen Gallery, 11 McColl St, Newmarket, to November 22
TJ says: Australian artist has three big drawings reflecting her preoccupation with shadows and an intriguing show of old frames, each filled with a figure that obliquely mirrors the style of the setting.