Art seen: December 19

Laura Elliott visits galleries in Queenstown and Wānaka to see the latest exhibitions.

Chasing Clouds, by Sierra Roberts. Photo: Gallery Thirty Three

Always a highlight of the season, Gallery Thirty Three’s end-of-year show brings together some of its most beloved artists, including printmaker Ben Reid, whose tongue-in-cheek woodcut I Used To Sleep At Night turns a bright-eyed cat into a winged creature of mythology, the mischievous destroyer of sleep.

Craig Pollard uses geometrical abstraction to incredible effect in Six Weeks of Winter (Southern Alps, Twizel, NZ), with sharp shards of fragmented light and dark tones turning the snow-capped peaks into glinting diamonds. The more pared-back composition of Sedated Land (Hawkduns Range, Central Otago) is equally striking, however, as the angle of the plains draws the viewer into the scene, positioned under a shaft of sunlight to face the peaceful, waiting mountains.

With subtle blurring and fading, and the sideways sweep of her brushstrokes, Belinda Griffiths brilliantly conveys a sense of movement in her Water’s Edge duo. Her subject is very believably gliding between frames, her dress blown by the wind; while in Sierra Roberts’ Chasing Clouds, a woman stands with her back to the viewer, looking into a background of mist and the unknown.

Roberts frequently uses floral motifs in her work, examining and challenging certain historical perceptions of floral painting, particularly by women, as a less serious form of art. Here, the body of her subject literally disappears into a wash of flowers, losing her identity and three-dimensionality and becoming a window on to a different scene; however, her head and mind are grounded firmly in the present, facing the future, seeking the possibilities beyond the clouds.

"Solstice", group show (Milford Galleries, Queenstown)

Queenstown’s Milford Galleries are also closing out the year on a high with ‘‘Solstice’’, their own impressive group show, which includes paintings, sculptures, and ceramics, all in very different, distinctive styles and media.

Michael Hight’s Loch Laird Rd is one of his iconic beehive scenes, with every last detail depicted with pinpoint accuracy and an obvious love for the land. The treatment of light, the play of shadow over the trees, has an effect that’s deeply calming and familiar, utterly faithful to the unique, warm glaze of sunlight over the southern landscape.

Paul Dibble’s cast bronze sculpture Huia on Ring is one of a number of gorgeous avian-themed works, curving over his perch to glower down, the sleek curves of beak and tail mirroring the circles of the ring and stand; while Neil Dawson’s large Seagull Feather is deceptively delicate, frozen in time as if suddenly caught while drifting on the breeze.

There’s a silkiness and quite ephemeral appearance to Dawson’s popular feather sculptures that contrasts effectively with their acrylic, aluminium, and polycarbonate construction.

Amanda Gruenwald’s abstraction turns colour itself into the subject matter, as the billowing clouds of Maroon, Orange, Green seem to swirl outwards from the surface of her canvas, a perfect complement to the blocks of vibrant colour in Karl Maughan’s garden paintings.

Maughan’s Watershed Road sees flourishing bushes and clusters of flowers appear to push outwards at the viewer, while the tiniest glimpse of the shadowy mountains beyond serves to ground the scene.

Muffle, by Phil Brooks. Photo: Glenn Frei

Often, when we look at ceramics, we simply take form and function for granted, focusing on the surface texture and decoration. Phil Brooks’s latest exhibition ‘‘Vent’’ challenges the viewer’s perception of the vases and bowls as vessels, objects designed to hold or display an item or substance, with a clearly delineated interior and exterior.

Smooth, curving surfaces are suddenly interrupted by carefully carved-out holes, vents, and windows; and where water or small objects would simply pour out, air now passes through freely, opening the space. With pieces like Muffle, the structure is reminiscent of a whispering gallery or tube, introducing elements of travelling sound and echoes.

If you were unaware that Brooks has a background in architecture and design, you might still guess it. With their neutral, earthen tones and rounded surfaces, many of the hand-coiled pieces evoke images of walking through cool, well-ventilated rooms and empty, echoing corridors, peering through windows and open doors - and even of the building of sandcastles, creating worlds of imagination and possibility from the most deceptively simple of shapes. Fittingly, the latter process begins with a vessel, yet the sand structures come into existence via the space inside.

Brooks keeps the eye and mind continually moving and wondering with the unexpected structural elements, breaks in form, and decorative patterning that initially appears to be another physical vent, yet is actually a visual illusion. We’re suddenly unsure what is empty space and what is shadow, what’s in and what’s out.