Memory and meaning at the Morgan Street Gallery

Maori language on sheet music from which a paper boat is made resonates with the word 'Koputai', the title of its partnered painting by Philip Maxwell at the Morgan Street Gallery. Picture / Glenn Jeffrey

A paper boat made from sheet music perches on a small shelf next to a painting. Its shape echoes the subject of the painting and hints at other connections.

This is a show all about echoes and hints, with objects alongside paintings demanding consideration. Why is that there? What is this art about?

Called Found, the exhibition was curated by Dr Carole Shepheard for Auckland's Morgan Street Gallery. In it, objects chosen by Shepheard respond to paintings selected by her.

There are 13 paintings by artists aligned with the gallery, ranging in style and media. Each has a small tableau beside it. A painting of a stylised amaryllis plant by Belinda Wilson is paired with an old book of botanical drawings, open to a page of delicately worked lilies.

Greg Lewis' Deep Well, a dark, moody canvas with text strewn across its surface, looms over a small display of wooden type that spells out the title of the painting in mirror image.

On one level it's an indulgence, providing justification for Shepheard's serious collecting habit. But she's already created justification, via an ongoing project entitled Museum of Cultural Anxiety, which challenges the dogmatic notion of single readings.

Objects in public collections are cleaned up, sanitised and labelled accurately and simply. Objects in Shepheard's Museum of Cultural Anxiety have multiple meanings. Theoretically, visitors to her museum can find their own meanings and create their own versions of truth.

"I'm interested in the interpretation of objects," she explains. "I've always wanted to know more about an object - how a thing has been used, and where it came from."

Basically, she likes a good story. With the paintings in Found, she plays storyteller by deciding on an interpretation and supporting the decision with props from her "museum".

"There are a number of ways you can appreciate art. I like to interpret the work by focusing on the content."

But Found is also about memory, an important component of Shepheard's work for the past decade or so. "It's not about nostalgia or yearning, but about bringing memory to the present."

In this project, her objects have acted as memory prompts, in much the same way as smells and tastes can trigger recall.

"I wanted to see what I could drag out of my memory," she says. "When I was looking at Richard Darbyshire's Carbon, for example, I started thinking about coal - my father was a coal miner. But carbon is also related to graphite and diamonds. The title can be interpreted in many different ways. And it is important to be able to accept a multiplicity of interpretations. It's about questioning the truth."

Accepting that there is more than one interpretation to a prompt such as the word "carbon" also acknowledges that memory is flawed and unreliable.

Found is a find. It's refreshing and thought-provoking. The exercise, inspired by the gallery's director Gillian Thomas, aimed to provide another way of reading the paintings and it does encourage that.

Back to the folded-paper boat. The sheet music it is made from belonged to Shepheard's grandmother, and its lyrics indicate it is a Maori song. The language resonates with the word Koputai, the title of the painting by Philip Maxwell.

And memories continue to unfold. As we talk, Shepheard recalls making boats from leaves as a child.

"And a Maori neighbour showed us how to make woven flax boats. I'd forgotten that ... " she marvels.

Exhibition

*What: Found: works by selected Morgan Street Gallery artists and objects from the Museum of Cultural Anxiety
*Where and when: Morgan Street Gallery, 9 Morgan St, Newmarket, to Apr 27