Dick Frizzell again shows the driving force with which we are familiar
Any artist who embarks on a series of paintings with a single theme faces a challenge. The series must be visually stimulating and have variations that give each work individual differences.
The dozen or more acrylic paintings in Up the Road by Dick Frizzell at Gow Langsford are a display of conscious virtuosity. He has done fine landscape works in the past, usually on a fairly large scale. In this show they are of moderate domestic size, all framed in exactly the same way.
Each work has a road in the middle going into the distance in perspective. Some drive straight to the horizon while others curve away out of sight.
They may be tarsealed or no more than rutted tracks. Many are rural driveways. Some pass through avenues of trees or go over a hill. They all pose the question: "Where does that lead to?"
The roads, trees and light are painted with extraordinary skill. They could be the work of a painter who had devoted his life to quiet, moderate, attractive landscapes. Nothing could be further from the Pop and comic images of the artist's past or his huge semi-abstract work. Of their kind they are completely successful.
The sureness of Frizzell's hand is seen in his firm touch in everything from fenceposts to a variety of trees and the texture of road surfaces. Every touch of paint is decisive and the quality is absolutely even.
To add to this display of virtuosity a small version of each scene has been done in gouache, and in the back room you can see an immense painting of two tree stumps and the drawing that was the source. Both large and small are masterly.
Heather Straka, whose work is at the Trish Clark Gallery, habitually paints in series. When she was in China she had 50 professional copyists make a copy of one of her works. It proved the point that every copyist unconsciously makes a tiny difference from the original. Covering one wall is a selection of the copies previously shown at Te Tuhi in Pakuranga.
Paintings by Heather Straka at Trish Clark Gallery
The longest wall has her latest series, 20 paintings in two ranks, all in identical black frames that hold oval portraits of men in uniform. The black frames were common for portraits early in the 20th century.
They expressly evoke photos of the men who went to the Great War but they are paintings. The telling point is that they show the backs of heads and shoulders.
The dark khaki/grey uniform worn by all of them has a high collar and a single epaulette, which suggests an irregular army.
The backs of the heads are completely individual. They range from bald through to grey and blond. All have their hair cut short back and sides although a couple have a little swish down to the lower neck. It is striking how the back of the head is as individual as a face.
The remarkable part of the work is that only in a couple of cases is the uniform unaltered. Most of them have been pulled together and pinned or taped to make the invisible front tight-fitting across the chest.
All of them have been forced into some sort of regimented unity. What binds the backs of some uniforms is a variety of large safety pins, some as big as nappy pins. In other images strips of wide sticky tape are used.
The total effect is sombrely evocative on many levels as a group but the images would probably survive being seen alone.
The show extends to two photos of girls in a sporty version of a nurses' uniform. In The Anatomy Lesson five of them cluster around a naked figure on a trolley. All of them are intent on their mobile phones or in whispered conversation, totally indifferent to the dead body. Death is not their concern.
Sticky masking tape plays a part in the paintings by Damien Kurth at the Sanderson Gallery in Newmarket. He concentrates entirely on still-life. He paints with great exactitude everyday objects - jars, glasses, bottles and cups.
Curtained and in a dim light, they might really be taken for real objects. Almost all of them sit on shelves and often there is a cross of tape on the shelf.
What is special about the work is a sinister quality that comes from cans on the shelves being battered and dirty, and particularly the way glass vessels are partly filled with sinister murky fluids. The taped crosses are like a warning. It makes an odd but admirable display of drawing skills.
At the galleries
What:
Up the Road
by Dick Frizzell
Where and when:
Gow Langsford Gallery, 2 Kitchener St, to April 25
Dick Frizzell brings the authority of his firm, decisive style to a series of modest paintings of roads and driveway that all raise questions about destinations.
What:Somebodies Eyes by Heather Straka Where and when: Trish Clark Gallery, 1 Bowen Ave, to May 15 TJ says: The paintings and photographs of Heather Straka are always strange and enigmatic with a wry wit allied to sinister connotations all her own.
What:Wilds by Damien Kurth Where and when: Sanderson Gallery, 2 Kent St, Newmarket, to April 19 TJ says: Damien Kurth has fine skills of drawing and painting that he exercises on exact still-life far different from the usual fruit and flowers.
