Art seen: June 8

Fanciful Mr. Fox, by Lizzie Carruthers. Photo: L Elliott

(Hullabaloo Art Space, Cromwell)

Unique, quirky, and just plain fun, Lizzie Carruthers’ and Jennifer Hay’s companion collections invite the viewer into a very original family tree. Carruthers’s iconic, anthropomorphic animal paintings here become ornately framed portraits, walls of furry and feathered "relatives" with colourful pasts and tongue-in-cheek names. The very dapper Fanciful Mr. Fox, with his upright, ruffled collar and censorious look, mingles with the imposing and equally judgemental hen matriarch, Henrietta Featherson, while Mr. E Fox, the "free range farmer and poultry fancier", has seated himself dangerously close to Countess Fowl, to the latter’s obvious perturbation.

Satirising the family archetypes of fiction, Carruthers weaves a visual tale of grand dames, black sheep, eccentrics, snobs, rogues and libertines. Her style is always extremely expressive, each subject communicating volumes through their penetrating stares and humorous body language. Tiny details and clever patterning build on the suggestion of Victorian poses and artefacts, and Jennifer Hay’s beautiful, intricate jewellery becomes the perfect counterpart. Hay matches many of the portraits with a family "heirloom" once owned by the relative in question, so the rather sweet Monsieur Mouse is paired with his brass Sovereign Case, suspended from glass jets. Hay’s work is delicate, both vintage and timeless in character, weaving silver like silken threads and lace in Dame Sylvia's’s silver ruff and Daisy’s Chain. The journey through time, whimsy, and story-telling ends with the inclusion of a framed mirror, so the viewer themselves becomes the final member of this unconventional family gathering.

Clear Gust #1, by Simon Lewis Wards. Photo: Gallery Thirty Three

(Gallery Thirty Three, Wānaka)

Winter has brought a masterclass in glass art at Wānaka’s Gallery Thirty Three, with fairly awe-inspiring new pieces by Simon Lewis Wards. Continuing his entertaining journey through the nation’s favourite lollies, Lewis Wards merges humour and incredible skill with Pink Twist and Purple Twist. The iconic sweets are exaggerated in size, uncannily accurate in detail, and quite beautiful as pieces of art. Looking as if you could pick them up and tear off a piece, the sliced-off ends have the smooth glossiness of a boiled sweet, offering a glimpse of the tiny bubbles trapped during the casting process. The twists bend and curve, with Purple Twist in particular taking on a sense of movement and personality, seeming to curl and writhe like a living creature.

The artist has surpassed his own achievements again, however, with Clear Gust #1 and Sapphire Rose Gust #1, reproducing pieces of bubble wrap in glass. Capturing the deceptive illusion of pliability, the works are kiln-cast and then shaped while hot, and the level of technical expertise involved is daunting. A mundane object — a piece of discarded plastic, blown away in the wind — becomes a feat of artistic engineering, the lines and folds graceful and dynamic, as if a strong breeze has just gusted through the gallery and sent the pieces tumbling and turning. Lewis Wards has a knack for making one medium look like another, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality, and always balancing difficult technique with simple joy.

Garden of Eden (21.4.23), by Darryn George. Photo: Milford Galleries Queenstown

(Milford Galleries, Queenstown)

Water cascades in a luminescent block of pastel, and the garden is cast into shimmering shadows under a midnight moon. Darryn George’s new collection, "In The Garden Where We First Met", is an immersive, sensory experience, resituating the Garden of Eden in a pseudo-New Zealand landscape, where hints of familiar vegetation and birdlife are rendered in kaleidoscopic, phosphorescent colour and the only human presence is the invisible hand of the artist. There is a distinctly dreamlike quality to the works, the mingling of the recognisable and the fantastical; the effect is fascinating, both nostalgic and slightly unsettling, the feeling of something a little askew behind the surface beauty.

In the outlines of the birds and trees, George mimics an almost childlike style of drawing, a deliberate, exaggerated simplicity that strips away artifice and evokes the wonder and naivety of earlier years, a time when we knew less but perhaps saw more. The composition and patterning are repeated in many of the works, but the angle will fractionally shift, as if the viewer is slowly moving through the garden, discovering more details and observing the subtle changes over time. With Garden of Eden (21.4.23) and Garden of Eden (8.4.23), among others, we appear to be standing on the same focal point but seeing different horizons appear and recede with the sinking of shadow or the illumination of light. The works are visually appealing but also a treasure trove of allusion and emotion.