It just goes to show, mutts can be masters

Kirstin Carlin with Anonymous (left) and Colin. Picture / Greg Bowker

A couple of years ago, Auckland artist Kirstin Carlin partnered with Octavia Cook in a show at the Anna Miles Gallery called Pugs and Prey. In the exhibition, jeweller Cook paid homage to the art of antique decoration, and Carlin expressed her fascination with the rococo period of portraiture with a suite of "old master" style cats and dogs. They all found new homes.

Since then, Carlin - now based in London - has tried to leave the dogs behind but they keep popping up on the canvas. Souvenirs, a title taken from the autobiography of French neo-classical painter Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, whom Carlin greatly admires, contains five dog portraits modelled on little pets painted by Goya in his 18th-century studies of Spanish aristocrats.

Fat little Sidney, for example, is from Goya's famous painting of Maria Teresa de Bourbon y Vallabriga. Birdie, possibly a poodle with beribboned tail, is inspired by his portrait of The Duchess of Alba, while the pugnacious Fernando, staunch but quite stupid looking, is from The Marchioness of Pontejos. Sad-eyed Anonymous has his (or her) origins in Dona Joaquina Candado, but sharp-eyed black and white Colin's origins are as yet unknown. There is also an elaborately framed portrait of dealer Michael Lett's dog, Sam.

The mutts' names, says Carlin, come to her as she paints them and their characters start to form. "Last time, I had the association with where I got the image from. This time I have been looking at them and naming them for their characters. I look at them as though they are new dogs and no longer Goya's dogs and name them accordingly.

"I work from the [Goya] images and have them turn out differently when I paint them. They are not copies but Goya's paintings are a good starting point.

"I tried very hard not to have dogs in this show," she continues, "but they are fun to paint. You paint the eyes, the nose and the mouth and all of a sudden you have a crazy character. And dogs pop up in art all over the place, they always have."

A graduate from Unitec in 2003, Carlin's enthusiasm for the rococo era verges on the obsessive.

Living in London gives her the opportunity to indulge that, with access to in-depth collections at galleries such as the Victoria and Albert and the National. She says she got "really addicted" to Goya after seeing a major exhibition of his work in Vienna, and while reading Robert Hughes' superb 2004 biography.

Souvenirs also contains some landscapes, "fragments" inspired by 18th-century French scenic wallpaper - romantic woods, the sky seen across treetops.

The show is complemented by a collection of whimsical watercolours meticulously painted by Carlin's grandmother, Beverley Aspden, of fairies and pixies familiar from the books of our childhoods. Aspden, in her 70s, started painting a few years ago and this is her first show.

"Last time I had a group show and for this, I was thinking about the space and thought I'd like a busy, packed show," says Carlin. "I thought my grandmother's work was amazing and I'd like to show it. It fits in with the idea behind my work."


Exhibition

* What: Souvenirs, by Kirstin Carlin, with Beverley Aspden
* Where and when: Anna Miles Gallery, 4J 47 High St/Canterbury Arcade, to Apr 29