The galleries: Quiet works and loud statements

By T.J. McNAMARA

The past week in art has been quiet in two ways. There were fewer exhibitions than usual, and the shows generally spoke with a small voice, although this did not affect their quality. It was a reminder that not all painting has to be big and shout.

From his base in Sydney, Peter Boggs has sent one of his rare exhibitions to the Ferner Gallery in Parnell, where it runs until June 6.

During his years in Auckland, Boggs' paintings were almost all small, sometimes exceptionally so. In this show called Metaphysical Landscapes, the paintings are all on a domestic scale, but still manage a quiet eloquence.

The landscapes are the result of the artist's travels through Italy and France, but they do not rely on the familiar or the picturesque. The metaphysical aspect of these works is the way Boggs takes the elements of place, boils them down, leaving out the people, the cars, the telegraph poles and any sense of movement.

Buildings and trees are reduced to almost Cubist forms, but unlike classical Cubism, these paintings have perspective and depth.

The plain forms are disposed in a tightly organised way and the depth is reinforced by subtle use of shadows. Added to this is a highly individual, limited palette of colour: green, brown and pale blue.

The pale blue skies are the only elements that distinguishes France from Italy. They tend to be darker in the paintings of France.

The subtle treatment of light is particularly effective in Hamlet near Arezzo, where it falls from left to right, creating shadows that link the tall trunks of trees on either side of the road in a simple but tight rhythm. A bushy tree on the left casts delicate shadows on the walls of a plain building. The still simplicity of the image suggests quiet contemplation.

Here the building is characterised by tiny, narrow, dark windows. Windows play an important part in Boggs' work. The principal building in Vincenza Town House has an absolute Palladian symmetry.

This symmetry is emphasised by a tree in the middle of the painting, and the strangeness of the image comes from the curtained windows and buildings either side, which give a shadowy, slightly disconcerting depth to the painting.

There are three little paintings that are just windows, and the frames, the tilt of their panes and the nearby guttering and downpipes have a tightly organised geometric formality.

At the same time, they achieve an atmosphere, mystery and silence that justifies the title.

Boggs' works are singularly unsentimental, but elsewhere the wheel seems to have come full circle and some young artists are now indulging in sweet sentiment without a trace of irony.

There are only a few more days until May 29 to catch the work of Lauren Winstone at the Michael Lett Gallery in K Rd.

Remarkably for a young artist, her small, quiet works, which are mostly clouds done in water colour and oil on paper, have titles such as Cuddle Chops, Cup Cake, Sweetie Pie, Snuggle Bum Honey Bunny, Dream Boat, Sunshine and Sweetness. These words emerge as lettering in the clouds. It is very amusing and has the appeal of innocence as well as being cleverly done.

The exhibition is shared with Australian artist Anne-Marie May. Her work, too, makes its point quietly.

There is dignity in the staves of wood moulded in resin and given a special Australian flavour in the colour and some dark patterns silk-screened on felt, each with a different suggestion of movement. They are strong, simple works that make a neat point.

A cleverly curated exhibition called Cut-Outs runs at the Anna Bibby Gallery until June 12.

Some of the work is cut from paper, some from aluminium and some even from steel, but most are gentle works such as Patrick Pound's Leaning Vermeer - a dry little work, like a footnote to The Girl with the Pearl Earring. Then there are Neil Dawson's intricate spheres in steel, here smaller than usual. Most reticent of all are Kirsty Gorman's drawings made by holes punched in paper.

Suddenly there are two big bangs.

The first is an explosion of roses from a chair which even has thorns on its legs, in a vivid, energetic work by Peter Madden, and then, round the corner of the gallery, a gigantic work, a great spray of rhythmically folded paper, made by Louise Paramor.

It is called A Very Public Affair and whooshes up like a fountain, one guarded by a huge worm that writhes on the ground. It is a impressive romp of colour and shape, and a wonder in its making.

In Parnell at the Ardor Gallery until May 27 is a show called Passionate Gestures, subtitled New Zealand Expressionism.

Such painting is often all emotion and the artists here do some operatic shouting to convey how they feel.

The one that really has it under control is Robert McLeod, with an abstract dance of rectangles done in 1984, and a small painting thick with heavy, tactile, red pigment called Crimson Brick.

The catalogue suggests that this painting be framed behind glass, no doubt to avoid some sort of threat to public safety.