Much more than luck of the draw

By TJ McNAMARA


Everyone admires good drawing in the sense of accurate representation but is it essential for fine painting? There is a lot of instructive material for this debate in Auckland this week.

At the new gallery called Artigiano, at 4 Lorne St, there is, until October 19, work by a young Australian artist whose drawing is immaculate. Amanda Feher paints nudes, mostly nude women.

As the light flows across the bodies, the articulation of muscles is abundantly clear and there is a strong sense of bone supporting structures everywhere - in the back, shoulders, arms and fingers.

Over these splendidly drawn figures there are swooping washes of colour to pull everything into unity. Nevertheless, the poses of these nude figures are, with one exception, utterly conventional. The paintings are admirable but extend our experience not at all.

The exception is a work called Little Seed where the crouching pose emphasises the woman's vulnerable back and rib-cage and where the emotional effect is heightened by slashes of red.

At the Michael Lett Gallery, 478 K Rd, the paintings of Seraphine Pick, on display until October 16, have a much greater variety of effect and powerful levels of symbolism which transcend the occasionally suspect drawing.

Her paintings are complex and highly individual. Nothing conventional here.

In He, a male nude turns his sad eyes away from a jungle. There grass is like the sword blades Henri Rousseau painted. In this jungle a group of women lie in wait like tigers and the grass is adorned with flowers, most of them looking exotic and deadly.

Some have a red tongue that curls like a whip. The deadliness is reinforced by a number of spiky cacti and Venus flytraps - all thorns and danger.

The female figures include a watchful woman in a black dress and another dangerous in green; there is a crouching woman with red hair, and a curious and ambiguous one with mask and lacy pants. A skeleton and a dead woman arched in sacrifice emphasise the danger.

Viewers will bring their own experience to the work and find their own meaning. The atmosphere of the work is extraordinarily powerful.

The other big paintings in the show are comparable in their symbolism but just a little more awkward in their realisation. Spectacular as they are, the drawing lets them down in places.

In Girl, the tall figure looks autobiographical. The fantasy cowgirl and the poodle with red claws that accompany her are effective, but the face is awkwardly constructed, especially around the mouth.

The other big iconic figure, called Huntress, is a woman in a golden robe whose head is tilted challengingly but whose legs are crossed under her robe very defensively.

Patterns of foliage in the background include seed pods with snapping teeth; at her feet are blood, a knife and a dead rabbit.

She is beautiful but full of menace. Yet the crucial aspect of pose, the jut of her hip and the crossed legs indicated by the feet peeping out from under the dress are awkwardly done and detract from the force of the image.

While it is possible to pick faults in the drawing, it is undeniable that Pick's creative imagination which links to the viewer's subconscious fears and memories continues to create substantial, challenging paintings that reinforce her prominent place in New Zealand art.

The variety of forms that drawing can take is emphasised by two contrasting exhibitions at the McPherson Gallery at 14 Vulcan Lane, which run until October 16.

In one room is Michael Dell painting still-lifes on linen with delicate precision. His works are no more than a bottle and a couple of boxes. They are arranged with the severe formality of geometric abstraction and their pale colouring emphasises their sculptural quality.

The arrangement is scrupulous, with tiny details of hinges on the boxes and little press-stud catches. Delicate, precise, poised - they exactly hit a target at a limited range.

In the other room Andrew Craig draws in paint in a totally different manner. His paint is plastered on in spectacular fashion because his subject is rock and rock formations.

Fractured strata produce an equivalent in paint of thick, heavy strokes. They work both as interesting paint and as a way of conveying the force of unyielding landscape.

The show is called Tectonic North and South and its energy derives from the forces of nature.

The rock is spectacular but it cuts into areas of thin surface soil and the sense of gradual change and shift is always present. These process are particularly apparent in Rift, and there is fine use of flat colour in Waiotapu.

Neither exhibition is as emotionally demanding as the work of Seraphine Pick. They are limited in content but striking in execution.

Finally, for tight, sharp drawing there is the example of Anah Dunsheath at the Ferner Gallery, 10 Lorne St, until October 16. She paints vistas of buildings where fruit and flowers float but the appeal of her work lies in the fascination with a virtuoso trick of optics that gives the paintings a sense of movement.

Each painting has three vistas running swiftly to a distant vanishing point but each is a relief construction so the apparent distance is the summit of a cone reaching forward to the viewer.

The trick is startlingly effective. The subject matter is often familiar buildings around Auckland. Most intriguing of all is The Art of Law where walls are hung with the works of prominent artists.