The galleries: Portals leading to another world

By T.J. McNAMARA

This week there is a choice between utterly chaste abstraction and lively, colourful - even jaunty - painting.

Both exhibitions are by painters who have found a place in the history of art in New Zealand.

At the Gus Fisher Gallery at the top of Shortland St, the estate of the late Gordon Walters has been mined for an exhibition that clearly shows the processes of his thinking and the decisions that made his poised, balanced abstractions so much admired.

The Gus Fisher is a university gallery and the exhibition has been curated in a knowledgeable and scholarly way by Francis Pound, a senior lecturer in art history who will produce a catalogue to go with the show.

In the manner of academics, the curator has found an obscure philosophic term for paintings and designs where the basic motif is repeated. He has called this idea en abyme and, the little explanatory labels that accompany the superb paintings that make up the major part of the exhibition play with the notion of whether or not they fit into the concept of "en abyme".

The phrase means "into the abyss" and refers to those works that not only repeat forms but suggest they go on ad infinitum. The piquancy of this is emphasised by the inclusion in the show of a Bycrofts biscuit tin.

A generation ago these graced grocers' shelves. On the tin there was a picture of a boy carrying a Bycrofts biscuit tin and on that tin there was a picture of a boy carrying a biscuit tin. The imagination of childhood multiplied it to infinity.

The comparison is apt, but just a little frivolous in view of the solemnity of Walters' work -although there is no doubt art and literature have gained from this reflection of a reflection concept. The reality is simply a surface, the appearance is something deeper.

Playing with the notion of en abyme is almost beside the point, given the reality of the way Walters manipulates simple shapes, often repeated, to suggest how things stand against a light which is a deep space. Or he can play it the other way and make darkness the deep space.

The reality is that Walters made simple, classical designs which, because they suggested portals, barriers and architraves leading to another world, had a unique quality that made them art.

Of course Walters is famous for his koru paintings full of the polarity of black and white and a certain tense asymmetry.

What this exhibition splendidly reveals is how the artist strove to go beyond the koru while retaining the absolute precision of design and execution that made the koru paintings so powerful.

In the foyer, in a glass case, there are a number of his small collages and drawings.

He cut and pasted simple shapes and colours to evolve the tense balance of his designs.

In a display blunder, the glass cases reflect the fine, coloured glass dome over the foyer so that it is more "en ciel" than "en abyme" but if you can manoeuvre your shadow, these drawings are worth study.

In the smaller gallery there is a collection of paintings of the next stage - the small trial versions for the big paintings.

Often these are very beautiful things in themselves.

Nevertheless, the heart of this splendid tribute lies in the main gallery where generous lenders enable us to see the finished, polished, serene, deep balanced compositions of Walters's maturity as a painter. And no korus. Until July 31.

Appearance and reality also come into play at the great, romping exhibition of unstretched canvases by Philip Trusttum at the Warwick Henderson Gallery in Parnell.

These canvases are an interpretation of Mussorgsky's celebrated piece, Pictures at an Exhibition. This was a response to a posthumous exhibition of paintings and drawings by the composer's friend Viktor Hartmann.

The piece is best known in an orchestration by Ravel. Trusttum was asked to create a backdrop for a performance of Pictures at an Exhibition then went on to develop his ideas in these canvases.

Interpreting music in images has often been an artistic endeavour. Indeed modern Abstract Expressionist painting has its origin in response to music.

The difficulty is that music moves continually forward where painting is static. Trusttum deals with this problem by giving his images and insistent rhythm that is lyrical in itself.

Everybody will have their own ideas inspired by the music. We may disagree with the interpretation of The Old Castle, which in Ravel's orchestration has smooth and oily saxophones, but Trusttum's two versions of this passage concentrates on the troubadour in front of the castle. And what a troubadour! Vividly red, harp and all. Enthroned in both versions and surrounded by curlicues of dancing shapes which evoke the most romantic ideas of the medieval world.

Mussorgsky's oxcart has heavy plodding rhythms. In Trusttum's version these are replaced by huge wheels which trundle behind the ox.

The culmination of the music is Mussorgsky's great Russian hymn, inspired by a drawing of the great gate of Kiev.

Trusttum has two shots at a painterly equivalent. Both are extraordinary paintings. They suggest a portal.

They incorporate huge, celebratory, exotic standards.

Their colour is inventive, with combinations that leave you open-mouthed in admiration.

Lively, painterly and rich these are grand equivalents for the splendid music. Until July 17.