KEY POINTS:
The variety of art in town is illustrated this week by work that is national, work that is grandly international and some that is completely idiosyncratic.
The work of Chris Charteris at FHE Galleries until December 21 is profoundly linked to indigenous materials, although it stands at the intersection of many cultures. Michelangelo said carving was releasing what is already in the stone. Charteris is able to take local materials - rock, pounamu, whalebone - and, by carving, reveal the inner life of the material in a way that is linked with traditions here and from abroad.
The piece called Whakakohao recalls Barbara Hepworth's The Torso that many years ago caused a furore when it was purchased by the Auckland Art Gallery. Hepworth suggested the identification of the human torso with rock and bone. The similarly shaped piece by Charteris, also pierced with a circular hole, suggests with its surface, a landscape; with its weight, a rock; and also decisive human intervention with the geometric form that reveals the inner energy of the stone.
This revelation of the material's inner life is at its simplest in the pounamu Toki where the greenstone is shaped to suggest an axe, an adze or a standing stone of brilliant colour with more monumentality than would be expected from its size.
In Korowai, valleys in the stone are decorated with intense chevron patterns that are like Maori carving but also appear natural. They have the power of inevitability.
The process is further apparent in the immense hanging necklaces of polished stone, one of which is called Collaboration with Nature. The emphasis is on the stones, which are beautiful, but the effect is obtained by a feat of engineering using steel cable.
The most splendid of all this outstanding work is another Toki, a thin slab of rock with a striking texture in the stone emphasised by traces of red oxide and a vivid top edge - a polished ridge in complete contrast to the texture of the sides. It is utterly true to the material and is at once axe and memorial and splendid carving.
The care for the material and the carver's skill are also apparent when the prevailing monumentality is contrasted with tall, graceful forms in wood, as slender and brittle as a bird. Such a work gives its title to the show, Kotuku, the white heron.
The same interaction between nature and human construction, but in a painterly way, is apparent in the work of Jacqueline Humphries, straight from New York to the Jensen Galleries in Newmarket until December 20.
The show, called Mercury's Moon, is resonant with the potent traditions of the New York school of abstract expressionism of the last century.
These big paintings suggest elemental forces. The oil and enamel pigment is swept on to the canvas in waves that are allowed to swoop, drip and roll by the forces of impulse and gravity. The paintings are rich with textures that range from high polish to hints of a rocky shore.
The title is linked to the prevailing silver and grey of such paintings as the big, untitled canvas in the middle of the downstairs room. These forces would appear unchecked were it not for the intervention of hard-edged lines and bars that have a geometrical, human origin and the sudden appearance of a small burst of bright colour.
The variety of techniques required to achieve this visual drama is remarkable, at times mysterious, and works well on a large scale. Upstairs there is yet another of the splendid large works and half-a-dozen small works where the gestural approach is much less impressive.
Another international attraction is the work of Frank Nitsche, who shares an exhibition with photographer Eberhard Havekost at the Gow Langsford Gallery until December 8. The Nitsche works are aptly called Discipline because they are large yet painted with extraordinary precision and assurance.
Circles, rectangles and groups of straight lines are arranged to make complex abstractions. A feature is the way a dark shape like a shadow can fall through the levels of the work and drive out into the foreground. This is skilful painting of great accomplishment but little apparent heart.
The idiosyncratic show is The Banquet by Heather Straka at the Anna Bibby Gallery until December 21. The artist's strength is drawing. She can capture an exact likeness but also has a passion for combining baroque effects with romanticism and oddity.
Eden Before the Fall is grinning skeletons around the tomb of a paradise lost. Shipwreck is romantic storm clouds and a little parade of penguins on a lonely shore.
The main thrust is a number of portraits. These contrast a gloomy setting with the white flash of eyes in recognition and the best have telling likenesses, given tension by a turn of the head. A frontal viewpoint weakens the impact. Some have hair in romantic disarray; others have shaven heads. At times, as in Donar VI, a red reflection on a black cloak adds to the Satanic, Gothic, Salvator Rosa banditti effect.
The portraits are melodramatic and, with the skeletons and landscapes, work effectively by virtue of this intensely theatrical manner.
In the outer gallery are paintings by Simon Kaan called When, which involve the rhythmic cavorting of simple, slinky-tailed shapes that are at once whales, protozoa and sperm. The background is cloudy and these forms are seeking crevices to hide. The effect is suitably moody but rather thin.
