Things shaping up for sculptors

By T.J. McNAMARA

Sculptors are rarer than painters. So it is an exceptional week when we have two exhibitions of sculpture at almost adjacent galleries around Khartoum Place. Furthermore, they are sculptures of radically different types, but both are extraordinarily inventive.

At FHE Gallery, Terry Stringer has one of his rare shows. Something of an old master in New Zealand sculpture, he works in traditional bronze and his pieces are available in editions; that is, a number of identical examples can be cast from the same mould.

All his works in this exhibition are designed to be seen in the round - they can be viewed from all sides. Stringer makes a special virtue of this, beginning from the concept that the head has one interesting view, of the features, and one dull view, of the back.

He often develops his ideas much further than simply showing two faces, but the concept of the Roman statues of Janus, the God of Gates, who had two faces - one looking forward and one looking back - is never far from his mind. The statues of Janus were usually "terms" - the faces were at the top of tall plinths - a feature Stringer makes excellent use of in some of the pieces in this show.

One work, Janus Head, is a self-portrait combined with a portrait of Stringer's partner looking younger. The base is inscribed with the word "Time" and the piece gracefully suggests both gaining experience and the passing of time.

In his eloquent introduction to the catalogue, Robin Woodward speaks of travelling around the work and making a series of discoveries on the journey. This journey can have striking effect, as in Mother and Child with Three Instruments of the Passion where what at first is like a conventional head crowned with thorns - though not the usual cruel thorns but rose thorns accompanied by beautifully shaped roses - becomes a caressing hand holding a nail that is also a tear, then the sad, tender face of the mother and a veil like that of St Veronica.

Works such as these are mounted on turntables so the viewer can see all sides, but viewers must walk around the larger works. The revelations are wonderful: a hand pointing upwards becomes a figure blessing.

The transitions such changes require are worked with great invention without compromising the solid mass of the weighty bronze.

The weightiness is most powerful in the large Muse of Sculpture, in which a huge face becomes a classical female figure, which in turn becomes a man listening to and consulting inspiration.

The masterly exhibition gives the feeling of deeply considered works that carry a great weight of reference on many levels and are concluded as a satisfactory and beautiful whole.

The sculpture of Leigh Christensen, Urban Arteries, at the Oedipus Rex Gallery, is much more modern in feeling, as it uses aerial views of motor vehicles and roads as subject matter.

But Christensen uses wood-carving, a technique as old as humanity, while for the lettering on the work he frequently uses a classical style with serifs, which came about as entry and exit points for the antique sculptor's chisel.

Christensen's lettering would have graced a Roman triumphal arch. It identifies the buildings and gives the works an exact sense of place. As the works are wall reliefs - unlike Stringer's works in the round - they have just one viewpoint.

Although we can identify every intersection depicted, the works are truly sculptural. They have a solid presence, a lively surface and an appealing sense of ant-like movement. They make strong patterns and still remain true to the slabs and trunks of wood from which they were made.

This is notable in Nelson Street Off Ramp, in which the piece of tough totara still conforms to the trunk shape as well as making good use of the grain.

This does not preclude invention and movement in depth as well as surface. The intricacies of the over and under, the railway line in Greenland Turnoff and the convention the sculptor uses to indicate planting add a three-dimensional spatial element. There is a special force in the way the subject dictates an interesting shape to the work in Spaghetti Junction, although the convention used for cars in this work is less choppy and true to the wood-carving process.

But this is to quibble about a splendid, highly inventive show that touches our daily life, has a modern viewpoint and still draws on traditional skills of the highest order.