Puckered up for a public portrait

By LINDA HERRICK

Welcome to the Love Boat, Auckland-style. When Elam photography masters student Wayne Wilson asked these punters on a dance party on the Kestrel to pucker up, they needed no prompting.

The result - Kissing Couples on the Kestrel - form part of a small photography and sculpture exhibition called Sheer, sharing some space at the National Maritime Museum's Edmiston Gallery at Viaduct Harbour.

Wilson, a former press photographer in Glasgow and in the final year of his masters degree, is fascinated by the city's dance culture.

He has amassed dozens of shots of what he calls "utopia moments", which he hopes to eventually mount as a full-scale exhibition.

Sheer, curated by Fiona Pardington and Sharonagh Montrose, who are also finishing their masters degrees this year, is the first of a series of graduate and post-grad exhibitions associated with Elam School of Fine Arts.

Sheer runs until the end of June, when the gallery will have to make way for media covering the America's Cup. When that's over, new work by Elam graduates will be on show in the gallery Montrose describes as "an alternative space which hopefully gets people looking at art in another way".

Aside from Wilson's photographs, Sheer also features work by Shigeru Takato, Karl Chitham, Dawn McFarlane and Jeffrey Holdaway.