''Land of a Thousand Dances'', Ewan McDougall (Gallery DeNovo)
Walking into an exhibition of work by Ewan McDougall is like walking into the middle of a wild party.
His vibrant works, with their instantly recognisable stickmen, take over the room, seemingly filling it with movement and sound.
It is good to see the return of McDougall to the gallery scene; the last year or so has seen the artist convalescing after serious illness, and most of the works in the current exhibition have been painted during this period of recovery.
Some of the pieces in the display reflect in some way on this, most notably the ominous Four Horsemen of the Apothecary, but for the most part McDougall's gleeful figures have continued their life of reckless, colourful abandon.
As always with McDougall's painting, the vivid brightness and closely packed composition are vital, as too is the wicked humour which pervades his canvases.
Works such as Reunion and Angel seem filled to the brim with outlandish figures, all jostling for room but all very clearly in their perfect places.
The compositional elements can be seen most clearly in the rarer monochromatic work, Bloody Circus.
Even in this black-and-grey piece, bold red undercoating peeps through the cracks, making the Felliniesque menagerie of grotesques come to life on the painting's surface.
''A Promise of Spring'', Christine Cathie (Milford Gallery)
Christine Cathie's cast-glass sculptures are a sensual delight.
Her distinct, harp-shaped forms feature gentle gradations and fluid whorls of colour, shifting and blending into and through each other.
The works are meticulously created through a lost wax casting method, a laborious and unforgiving process, yet one which the artist handles with dexterity.
Colour is added in distinct layers, producing works which seem to breathe with the subtle beauty of polished gemstones.
The surfaces of the sculptures alternate between acid-etched translucence and severely hand-polished transparency, the resulting combinations playing with each other and the surrounding light sources.
The strong, slender forms and the glints and shadows cast by the works enhance the gem-like quality of the pieces, transforming them into jewels on some giant stage set.
The colour combinations of the works have deliberately been chosen to reflect the turning seasons.
The rich russets and ambers of Shimmer and Midday and the deep greens of Bush morning sit beautifully alongside the glacial white of Thaw and the airy blues and greens of Atmosphere and Meadow.
The gradual changes of shade, the contrasting surface textures, and the sheer organic beauty of the ovoid forms combine in works which almost demand to be touched and caressed.
''Seven'', various artists (The Artist's Room)
The Artist's Room's annual ''Seven'' group show is on again, featuring an assortment of artists, some well known locally and others new to Dunedin's galleries.
Sam Foley and Hannah Joynt have both produced impressive, if radically different, landscape paintings.
Foley's works are crisp images, the play of natural light through dappled foliage and artificial light on city streets being impressively rendered.
Joynt's images are more impressionistic, forms of distant trees seeming to float against liquid skies.
Photographer Alex Lovell-Smith explores the nature of memory in his Polaroid photographs and their ghostlike contact reversals.
Clear scenes are reflected in faded, lost daydream images.
Two printmakers provide memorable images in this exhibition.
Kereama Taepa successfully combines comic-book art and traditional Maori moko, producing strong, Maorified superhero masks.
Marion Vialade's work is more gentle and wistful, her lovingly detailed images of old goldfield storefronts being particularly appealing.
Penny Howard combines painting and sculpture with her large, effective wall-hanging, its silhouetted bird forms reflected in the finely painted gull and stormy sky upon their surfaces.
Artist's Room regular Helen Back completes the display with fine sculptures which show a distinct advancement in her whimsical characters.
The addition of sensitive caricature animals adds extra interest, providing a fine foil for the human figures.
