The galleries: Maoritanga and mythic forces

By T.J. McNamara

Commitment to a cause can be a powerful force behind an artist's painting and this week exhibitions include two outstanding examples. The two shows - one by Shane Cotton and the other by Alexis Hunter - also provide a contrast between an artist who is a nationalist and one whose reputation is international.

Cotton's commitment is to his Maoritanga. His Recent Paintings, at the Gow Langsford Gallery until December 13, are in some measure a return to his earliest work where isolated elements were posed against a background, unlike the density of image achieved in the work that established his name.

In the past the elements were different, whereas here they are similar and arranged in regular patterns on the dark background. There are three forms in constant use: a preserved shrunken head seen in profile and full-face; round target shapes with a variety of colours in concentric rings; and birds, especially tuis. The unmistakable shape of these birds is painted in unnatural colours, notably blue.

For an older generation these might suggest The Bluebird of Happiness, but the paintings suggest nostalgia, melancholy and loss.

Cotton has not abandoned his use of text but it is reduced to horizontal trails of tiny lettering like traces of half-remembered song. The text sometimes contains little landscapes perceptible only when the viewer is close.

Despite these features that force us to peer closely at the work, these paintings are on a large scale and there are only four.

The Carrier has two large heads with a large series of concentric circles between them. The paint is rich and strong although there is only a dark background. A bird is resting in the middle panel with the circle and in the left panel the bird has taken flight. It is evident the bird has a symbolic meaning, perhaps suggesting the spirit which has taken flight from older times and now rests in a complex of lives within lives.

In an equally large painting the heads alternate with the circles and are placed against an evocative background of misty cloud. Each head has a letter on its forehead as if it were part of a tale or a classification. Birds, tuis and fantails flit among the shapes. The link between fantails and the death of Maui who sought eternal life by re-entering the womb is relevant but this is painting, not illustration, so interpretation is left open to viewers.

Despite the openness to interpretation there remains a feeling that there is some hermetic explanation special to the painter. Is the bright centre of the rings in Kei Toko Taha much more than a formal device? What do the long lines of tiny lettering which are almost impossible to read actually say? And what is the meaning of the tiny landscape on the left of Blue Sight?

The nature of the paintings is enigmatic. Because the elements of their design are so isolated they take on the nature of banners. They have a strong immediate impact but there is a lack of context. Despite their size and authority, the failure to load every rift with ore makes them another step in the development of Cotton's work rather than a show of completely satisfying image-making.

The paintings and drawings of Alexis Hunter at Whitespace Gallery in Newmarket until December 5 are small and done from a feminist point of view. They explore the power of the female principle, myth, history and modernism. She calls them Technomyths.

The modern link is that the paintings are done on motherboards taken from computers and the name is significant. The best of the images have real power. The boards have intricate patterns of connections, terminals and pathways, and take on a modern symbolic function. When they are painted over too much, as in Chimera of the Motherboard, the board becomes just a textured surface to paint on, although the tense, energetic chimera is as lively as any the artist has painted before as instinctive beast/humans.

Elsewhere the interaction between the painted figure and the modern technology is splendidly suggestive - most of all in Spirit of the Motherboard with a great, green dancing angel with painted toenails. The figure is exactly fitted to the electronics and is much more effective than more conventional figures such as Queen of the Motherboard.

The works on paper are notable for Hunter's excellent imaginative drawing as well as her knowledge of pre-history and religious myth as it relates to women and the iconic worship of them.

The exhibition is a welcome reminder of why Hunter has such a wide international reputation.