The galleries: The obvious and the obscure

Artcan be explicit or implicit. Some exhibitions of painting make their point clearly, others are more obscure and mysterious.

The vigorous paintings of Robert Kerr at the McPherson Gallery until Saturday are explicit - their clear meanings reflect the artist's background as an illustrator.

These confident paintings show those scenes in New Zealand the artist considers characteristic. He cares for landscapes near the sea and many of his paintings stretch out in a panoramic format. The loop of roads around hills, or the straight drive of a road along a ridge are strong compositional features.

The images are characteristically stiffened by telegraph poles, indicated by scraping through the paint to the board underneath. Thin paint energetically pushed around is characteristic of the work.

The only implicit meaning is that New Zealand landscapes are often empty of human activity. A few of the paintings feature a signpost or a vividly coloured bulldozer, which suggest a way Kerr might develop to give his painting an extra layer.

Peter James Smith, whose show is at the Edmiston Duke Gallery until July 2, adds layers of mathematics and historical reference over his dramatic landscapes. Smith is a mathematician as well as an artist. His paintings are done against black backgrounds across which notations are written, as if with chalk. Sometimes they occupy the whole black area.

A painting that has only mathematics on it is in effect a theorem as still-life supporting other still-lifes of a clock and flowers. The mathematics tells us about the artist's capacities and interests, but the major attraction is still the splendid painting of headlands, sea and luminous sunset and sunrise skies.

Particularly notable is Dawn Arrival by Sea, of Cape Maria van Diemen. The rising sun touches the land like a revelation and is subtly reflected through the transparency of a wave. Cook's Second Voyage makes telling use of the black silhouette of the little Resolution.

Smith's hand sometimes falters with the present - the gannets on the rocks at Muriwai - but what he does exceptionally well is imply history in his landscapes as well as parallel achievements in science.

Explicit images but total mystery about what is implied characterise the work of Andrew McLeod at Ivan Anthony until July 8. In his paintings and complex drawings, he assembles a host of recognisable objects but why they are juxtaposed is not clear.

They do not have the surreal clarity of a dream but meander from detail to detail.

Even the tone is unclear. Butterflies and bunnies and teddy bears share space with tyres, spirit levels and a ladder. Are these meant ironically or sentimentally?

One work contains the computer-generated architectural images that established McLeod's reputation.

The medium has changed but what the works require from the viewer is the same. It is necessary to surrender to the odd world that has been created and make what connections you can.

It is a game of illusion and visual invention, which McLeod plays with remarkable skill and invention.

In many ways a photograph has the explicitness of documentary, especially in black and white. This quality is carried over with horrifying power by Chieh-jen Chen from Taiwan in his black-and-white video projection, which is the most startling work in a varied show of video art, Slow Rushes, at Artspace until July 9.

A number of works are from Australasia and Asia but they seem trite compared to the work by Chen called Echoes of a Historical Photograph with its political implications.

The torturers have the pigtails and the uniforms of old China. The opium that drugs the victim into resignation at his execution is supplied by a British company.

The fascination of this film lies in the details of the cruelty. Equally explicit are the features of the crowd, their faces impassive but curious.

Their complicity in this fearful ritual is brought home when blood runs down their legs as it runs down to the feet of the tortured man. It is an explicit expression of pity and terror.