Art seen

<i>Tafelspiele 3, </i> by Lorene Taurerewa

Wit and a sense of unease are the main actors at work in Lorene Taurerewa's exhibition at the Milford. The title of the show, ''Tafelspiele'' - German for ''table play'' or ''table games'' - lets us know there is more happening than what we see. Elements within the moody charcoal and pencil drawings evoke a sense of theatre, encouraging the viewer to draw their own conclusions formed by the anxieties of their own lives. However, despite the confrontational aspect of the works, they remain familiar and impelling.

Taurerewa has clearly mastered the medium of drawing. Her small pencil figures are beautiful, delicate and deeply still while her large charcoal drawings are spontaneous and energetic, displaying the artist's deft hand and years of training. Taurerewa has used her drawing expertise to create a variety of characters that embrace her own unique figurative allegories.

The series of Wogengroupe pencil drawings on rice paper draws in viewers with their intimacy, but on closer inspection the theatrical characters are quite disconcerting. A number of the works feature the Golliwog, who may be read as ''the embodiment of creative, disruptive wit''.

The textured, large-scale Tafelspiele charcoals are dominated by disembodied sculpted heads. The large black shadowing around the eyes extinguishes any life-force, yet some appear to interact with disturbing shifts in space and scale with animals and figures such as childhood's masked Lone Ranger - reawakening old memories from the past.

<i>Daniells Flowers 2</i>, by Eliza Glyn

Eliza Glyn's first exhibition in her new gallery was very a refreshing treat after all the gloomy weather of late. The work that fills the wall space is subtle and delicate, with subject matter consisting of still life, flower and landscape, evoking a sense of nostalgia.

Glyn paints in gouache on to small recycled Rimu panels - creating not only opacity but also a translucency that reveals the grain of the wood beneath a wash. Worked as a collection or in pairs of similar subject matter or palette, Glyn's pictures reflect a soft luminous impressionistic style - a style that tends to suit the subjects this accomplished artist likes to paint.

The flower paintings, Glyn's new works, are very appealing with images of freshly picked spring flowers casually arranged in irregular shaped beakers placed on a table top. The plain white background adds to the fresh quality of the work, allowing the flowers to dominate.

The depictions of landscape are also exquisitely refined, drawing the viewer through their intimacy, fine detail and sublime sensitivity to mood. Iconic New Zealand caravans, farm buildings, trees and fields and old Invercargill houses are all appropriately grouped. So, too, the still-life work. Images of kitchen vessels and fruit are painted with the same sensitivity, with a particularly lovely work, Bottle, Cup and Pear catching the eye.

<i>Damo,</i> by Alex Lovell-Smith

''Project Ridebo'' is a photographic portrait exhibition. Alex Lovell-Smith's striking black-and-white images are produced using traditional analogue methods of photography. Despite current photographic art trends towards the large inkjet print, the techniques implemented by Lovell-Smith are not only a nod to photographic history, but also project-driven and handcrafted, allowing for increased artistic inventiveness.

Using a 4x54 camera and wet-process photographic paper, negatives were printed in a darkroom, rephotographed and then enlarged to produce the final life-size portraits. The process was slow and deliberate. To produce these photographs, it was an experimental project all the way for the photographer, allowing for the free play of intuition beyond the control of the intellect. Due to a low-light environment and the camera's level of sensitivity, each portrait (head and shoulders) was blasted with light, rendering images that are very sharp in their tonal contrast.

Set against a black background and lit from one side only, the face of each subject is partially obscured, creating a sense of abstraction and mysteriousness making these images more compelling. To add further impact, the subjects (young men and women) are placed to face the viewer and interact in a way which leaves one wondering who is doing the spectating. Although most are closed-lipped and unsmiling, their demeanour appearing rather intense, these images are captivating and appealing.

- Julie Jopp