KEY POINTS:
The title of the exhibition sums it up: these are Shielded Histories. The shape of the paintings is a shield and they are all emblazoned with history.
The paintings by Robert Ellis at Milford Galleries until Saturday are not a representation of a place or a thing but emblems of a people, a place, a time, an idea of history.
The shield shape suggests ancestry, ceremony and armed conflict.
Ellis' shields are specifically New Zealand and within them he collects Maori designs and images from colonial history in a way similar to his splendid tapestry in the Aotea Centre foyer.
In Shielded Histories #6 (#8 in the show) there is a crown at the top and a heraldic scroll at the bottom. The scroll is empty - the final story has still to be written.
Inside the shield are such things as the concentric spirals of Maori design, a chalice, and the symbols for alpha and omega.
Alongside Maori motifs are such things as bright medal ribbons that suggest the part the military played in our early European history.
The crown, painted more thinly than the rich surface elsewhere, suggests a paper crown.
None of these collections of emblems would be effective without the bold colour and the tactile quality of the handling of the paint surfaces.
These shields are much more static than previous exhibitions, where Ellis referred specifically to Mt Eden, the skies above it and the water flowing through the strata beneath.
There is not much to differentiate one shield from another.
The old master has not lost his touch with paint but assemblage of the emblematic elements has something mechanical about it. Each of these paintings, powerfully effective on its own, becomes muted by the nature of an exhibition.
An emblematic quality is also evident in the work of John Pule at the Gow Langsford Gallery, further up Kitchener St, until November 18. Here the paint is thinner and the symbolic objects more drawn than painted.
The only thick paint is found on the characteristic dark islands that dot Pule's paintings in a regular pattern.
In this show these are a particularly vibrant green, clouded with black. These islands are connected by verticals of vine that suggest continuing movement and patterns of growth.
These continuums are adorned with stylised flowers and among and between the verticals is the dramatic play of life as little drawn incidents that range from explicit sexuality to the futile labour of dragging idols uphill.
Religious symbols are mixed with images of modernity. A hill with three crosses may be found not far from a jet fighter roaring across the open space of the painting. Rangitoto gives a sense of place.
The most vital of these elements have a Polynesian origin, particularly the great stylised sharks which convey the force of nature.
These toothy monsters, sometimes equipped with an unlikely tongue, surge through the paintings and give them a peculiar power.
The exhibition is called Another Green World and a feature of the show is the slight changes of symbolism and atmosphere between each of these six big canvasses.
It is Not Yet Dusk and I Wish I Was With You have explicitly sexual elements.
In I Wish I Was With You the bottom of the canvas is convincingly handled by running a series of forms across it like a frieze.
Not Today Nor Tomorrow shares this feature but the references are more religious and the image of the Cross is linked to the hunting and butchering of an animal. The frequently occurring emblem of a ladder or a flight of steps to suggest aspiration is tellingly used.
Across Khartoum Place at Orexart until November 10 are emblems of another kind. With great skill Jonathan Campbell has cast exact replicas of household objects in a way that establishes them as sculptural evocations of a generation past.
There is a special kind of magic realism in weighty bronze copies of enamel electric jugs and those big teapots that had an extra handle at the front for pouring the tea at big gatherings.
The exhibition is also graced by a lemon exerting weight on a bronze cushion, an old-fashioned bronze telephone and even a bronze power-plug on the wall. Giving soul and spirit to this show are raucous squawking birds perched here and there, all equipped with a big key like a wind-up toy.
This is both magic and sculpture. These objects, even down to the tags that give each one its title, are the transitory bits and pieces of life made to last for ever.
To add to the gaiety of nations, in the small gallery at Orexart is a delightful exhibition of painting by Claire van der Plas.
As background to her work she deftly recreates paintings by such eminent Old Masters as Constable and Stubbs and against them places modern people and animals in a way that combines wit, observation and excellent draughtsmanship.
Whether it is a big pumpkin or an aging axeman combined with a pony and a girl dressed for a party - and whether painted on wood or on a trivet - these delightful paintings show both skill and a highly individual point of view.
