Always more than meets the eye

By LINDA HERRICK arts editor

Peter Peryer is getting ready to say goodbye. He's cleaned out the cupboard, and shed some of the last remaining prints of classic Peryer images from his private collection for a show at Starkwhite gallery in Auckland. When these keenly sought-after works go, they're out of Peryer's life for good.

"Because I don't reprint my work much, quite a lot of the earlier works are very rare," says the New Plymouth-based Arts Foundation Laureate whose work is held in public galleries and private collections around the world. "In some cases only one copy is available or even in existence. We've trawled through my collection to see what there is and put out some earlier works."

The collection gathers 10 classics from 1982 to 1999, and includes some iconic black and white works immediately recognisable as carrying the Peryer stamp of economy and power, and, in many cases, humour or even some elements of menace. As in all Peryer works, he tickles the imagination, makes you wonder, keeps you guessing ...

Fans of Peryer's Erika series - Erika being his former wife and muse of many years - will be thrilled to see there is an Erika (Necklace) (1979) in this exhibition. It's the earliest image in the show, which also includes Dead Steer (1987), his stark shot of a bloated dead cow stiffened by rigor mortis at the edge of the road.

Hard as it is to understand now, Dead Steer caused a storm when it appeared in a poster for Peryer's major retrospective, Second Nature, in Germany in 1995. The New Zealand Meat Producers' Board actually thought it would make meat eaters believe this country was littered with sick animals and that it would impact on our meat trade. Consequently, the New Zealand Embassy in Bonn - under instructions from Wellington in the days of the Bolger Government - boycotted the opening.

Ironically, Dead Steer is highly collectible, as is all of Peryer's back catalogue, which spans nearly 30 years.

Peryer's sense of whimsy is well-represented here. Not all is as it seems. New Zealand (1991) looks as though it could be a satellite image shot from the heavens. It's actually a map set in concrete, shot in a schoolyard. And Home (1991) fascinates as an apparently large country house nestled darkly within a forest; but it's a model, the picture taken at the Beckonscot model village in Buckinghamshire.

"If I'd taken the photo in colour I don't think it would look so real," says Peryer. "It is a little bit Hansel and Gretel. I get a slightly sinister feeling from this house - there is something scary about it."

At times, he has enjoyed taking photos of architectural forms, represented at Starkwhite in Street Scene Oamaru (1988), with the town's magnificent Victorian whitestone buildings preserved starkly on film - and, Peryer believes, saved by Oamaru's economy during the era of the bulldozers, the 1980s.

Peryer first began taking photographs seriously when he was 33. A few years later, he started using a little plastic camera called a Diana he bought in a toyshop for $1.29. But the technology has advanced: Diana didn't last long and he graduated to more sophisticated practices.

He now fully embraces digital technology, examples of which are also included at Starkwhite, such as Three Sisters, a striking shot of the three rock formations in north Taranaki a month before the middle "sister" collapsed.

Peryer, 60, has always worked slowly, and is ruthless when it comes to selecting which images make the cut. However, he admits to speeding things up a little lately, in his terms anyway.

"I'm producing at a great rate at the moment, partly because for the first time I can afford to hire a full-time assistant."

His sense of play has not diminished, for which his many admirers will be thankful. Peryer moved to New Plymouth from Auckland several years ago, but whenever he returns to the City of Sails, he adores poking through the Asian shops which have sprung up around the central city. There's always something weird that catches his eye, he says, waving a bizarre wooden foot massage contraption, and the cheap stuff can make great material for photos.

There's an image of one of them right up the stairs at Starkwhite: a cat. But it's a Peryer photo - so it's a cat with a difference.

Exhibition

* What: Classic Photographs, by Peter Peryer

* Where and when: Starkwhite, 510 K Rd, to May 1