Art seen

<i>Crooner</i>, by Saskia Leek.

''Desk collection'' is a mid-career survey of the work of Saskia Leek.

The exhibition leads the viewer chronologically through the artist's career. In doing so, it encompasses several stages and styles, from early cartoon-like naive expressionism through to the artist's recent foray into a semi-abstract world of colour.

The earliest work displayed, from the mid-1990s, is wordy and punky, the works coloured by teenage angst and by an amalgam of New Zealand suburbia and dreams of Americana.

From here, the artist moved to a phase of glossily bright works focused on solitary figures, nurse and patient, against an isolating coloured background.

This work may have provided something of an exorcism for the artist, as her next work is softer and more meditative. Realistic elements start to appear, including simple buildings and a repeating motif of a horse.

Colours leach away to watercolour-like pastel and the overall mood is calmer. Gradually, the realism starts to shatter into various expressionistic styles, with elements of abstraction entering the frame. In her most recent works, realism is largely eschewed and strong colour starts to re-emerge.

As an overview, the exhibition is a fascinating walk through the artist's work, and as always with the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the show is well presented and thoroughly annotated.

<i>The Fountain</i>, by Anya Sinclair.

ANnya Sinclair's landscape paintings have been inspired in recent times by a trip to Brazil. The tropical vegetation and humid equatorial climate are nicely presented in a short series of works on display at The Artist's Room.

Sinclair's work has long revelled in the deep greens of enclosed nature, especially those places where natural elements have been tamed and then have reclaimed themselves, with overgrown landscaped gardens and lush vegetation growing amid old stonework.

The formal gardens of South America have provided great scope for Sinclair's art, with verdant jungle and palm slowly engulfing gates and fountains and providing strong shade under which to wander.

The artist's latest work has opened up with more colour and light. There is space and airiness even within the overhanging leaves. A hint of misty distance can be found in some of the images - notably Dark Pool - and even the heavy vines of The River fail to totally overwhelm this sub-arboreal world.

Simultaneously, the artist's brushwork has opened up. The almost gestural leaves and vines and the seemingly casual yet deft washes of vertical and horizontal line speak of a confidence in the artist, one that is well-founded, as these works are as impressive as they are effective.

<i>The Black Crow shows Snow White the way</i>, by Ivan Hill.

One of Dunedin's best-loved painters turns 80 this month, and is celebrating with an exhibition.

Ivan Hill has long delighted with his offbeat tongue-in-cheek art, much of it depicting local dignitaries in respectful but less-than-dignified ways. In recent years, his naive art has turned to a magical realm, firstly with witches and now with scenes from the classic fairy tale of Snow White.

Hill's art always brings a smile, as much through his humorous details as through his colourful, heavily populated scenes. The bright insects buzzing through the trees are as important to the tableaux as the major protagonists.

Humour also comes from the quirky scenarios the artist sets up - I cannot recall, for instance, whether the Brothers Grimm mentioned the dwarfs played cricket, but such a situation is perfectly acceptable in Hill's warmly created canvases.

The artist sees this exhibition as a valedictory. Now residing in a rest-home, he finds little ability to paint, and the outlook for further exhibitions is poor.

If that is the case, this exhibition is a fine ending, but a sad one as we shall have no more of these works. It is worth noting, however, that the artist has ''retired'' at least once before, so there is always a faint chance for more of his wonderful whimsy.