Art seen

''Pearler'', Ewan and Sarah McDougall (Gallery De Novo)

Ewan and Sarah McDougall's ''Pearler'' is a celebration of life, of love, and of the arts. A celebration of life, as it comes hard on the heels of Ewan's remission from cancer; of love, as it commemorates the couple's 30th wedding anniversary; of the arts, as it is a combination of Ewan's paintings and Sarah's complementary poems, not just present on the walls of the gallery but in a new limited-edition book.

It is fair to say that the McDougalls have not always had the easiest path. Passionate loves rarely have the smoothest of rides, and the delirious colours of Ewan's art reflect the fact that delirium can sometimes be gained by artificial means. That the demons have been overcome and turned into fine, joyous works is to the artist's credit. Sarah's words hint at the demons, but also reflect the fires of love within, and it is fitting that this exhibition should have opened on Valentine's Day.

The paintings are filled with bright, gleeful humour, with images such as Bad Mona Lisa and Happiness Junky leaving an idiot grin on the viewer's face. The poetry evokes strong scenes which match them well, and also speaks simply yet deeply of the life the couple share: ''Complementary, not enmeshed ... love's labour found, not lost in the painting.''

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''States of emergency'', Jenna Packer (Milford Gallery)

Jenna Packer's art has long presented an alternative Earth, where the timelines of discovery and invention have become distorted in imaginative and wondrous ways. Her historically tinged paintings show airships above fleets of sea craft of all descriptions, Chinese junks and Maori waka moored alongside each other at the wharves of a seemingly Victorian yet all too modern world.

Packer's current exhibition ramps up the inventiveness with a series of precise large-scale images. The towns and small premodern, postapocalyptic settlements lie in the landscapes of colonial art, taking their cue from the early New Zealand settler art of painters such as Alfred Sharpe. The works are displayed in spectacular detail while retaining the eye for the logically absurd that such other-earth scenes would sensibly present.

Above all, this latest series presents gloriously fascinating allegorical scenes which are all too clearly political, yet still retain the aesthetic wealth of Packer's earlier works. It does not take much to interpret the sacred golden bull of capitalism, entering into an unholy alliance with the innocent Zealandia, while nodding-donkey oil pumpers work away at the land and whales are slaughtered nearby, nor the construction of giant sporting arenas in the heart of depressed industrial towns. This is political art at its best: pointed, yet endlessly inventive and eye-catching.

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''Transforma: N8VLAB'' (The Artist's Room)

The N8VLAB project is the brainchild of Michel Tuffery, working in collaboration with Tracey Tawhiao and invited guests, father and son Wi and Kereama Taepa. In ''Transforma'', these artists engage, trade, and collaborate on ideas combining traditional Maori art with elements of European, Pacific, and Asian origin.

The Maori heru comb is a basis for much of the work. A templated design has been worked in numerous ways, notably by the use of perspex. Tuffery and Taepa jun have created sleek black and gaudy fluorescent forms, decorated in numerous bright, inventive ways. Tuffery has decorated other heru with Japanese octopus images and traditional Pacific motifs. Taepa sen has used more traditional Maori themes with his painted heru, relying largely on koru and the traditional colours of red, white, and black.

Koru also come into great effect in Tawhiao's work, with mirrors and rolls of paper used as a backdrop for her heavily decorated and impressive kowhaiwhai.

Among the most notable pieces is the slyly political Space invasion by Kereama Taepa, with its video game motifs replaced by a defending whare and invading Church, Crown, and State. Tuffery's impressive Maori/Japanese acrylics also drive home a pointed message with their samurai and dying whale juxtaposed with Tangaroa and the extinct huia.

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