Art seen

"Bush walk", Wallace Crossman (Gallery On Blueskin)

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It is welcome to see an exhibition by Wallace Crossman. For a long time a stalwart figure of the local art scene, Crossman has been away from the galleries for some time because of illness. He now returns with an exhibition celebrating his year as Orokonui Ecosanctuary's artist in residence.

The exhibition is being run concurrently with a display of stone carving, again created through artists and students at Orokonui, which features work by Crossman's daughter, Moira. Both exhibitions have been created with the help of DCC community arts funding.

Crossman senior's works fiercely capture the essence of the bush in strong lines and areas of dappled colour. Inspired by abstract expressionist art, many of the pieces ride a wave of coloured light, creating the essence of the depths of the bush which engulf a walker.

Others, notably the small bush sketches, show a more representational approach informed by French impressionism.

In all of the works a keen sense of composition is displayed, perhaps no more strongly than in a series of pastel works in the back gallery.

Alongside these is a series of bold monochromatic works in thick black line, laying bare the architectural structure of many of the living forms within the art.

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"Strolling Along the Roof of Hell/Gawking at Flowers", Kirsten Ferguson (Inge Doesburg Gallery)

At first glance, there seems little to Kirsten Ferguson's latest exhibition, and it also seems of minimal merit. The works simply consist of vertical troikas of hand-daubed paint on unadorned backgrounds.

Initial appearances can be deceptive, however.

These works show an intriguing depth in their take on a theme inspired by a simple haiku, the last two lines of which form the exhibition's title. The poem describes life's journey across the depths, with natural colours providing joyous highlights to an otherwise bleak existence.

So it is here. Colour is of primary importance, hinting at blossoms and trees. The paint is thick and sculptural, applied directly by hand without the intervention of brush or knife. The works, simplistic though they initially appear, burst with life, and imply a philosophical and artistic analogy to the simple-yet-deep nature of haiku. The trinity of each work can be seen to reflect the lines in the poem, and also the trinity present in many religions, from paganism through to Christianity.

Several of the pieces imply human forms, as if we are the ephemeral flowers depicted. This memento mori is fitting given the verse's inherent meaning.

There are also echoes of early Brucke-era expressionism in these pieces, the trio forms inadvertently echoing Ernst Kirchner's candid street portraiture.

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"Actuations, Akshuns, and Live-works", Adrian Hall, Andre Stitt and Alastair MacLennan (School of Art Gallery)

There are times, as a reviewer, when it's easy to be lost for words. Such was the case this week with a visit to "Actuations, Akshuns, and Live-works" at the School of Art. The work is a performance piece, which has been enacted over the course of several days, and is part of a wider piece encompassing several local art spaces.

The work draws on the traditions of performance art from 1960s groups such as Fluxus, applying a neo-Dadaist approach summed up in that movement's 1965 claim that its intention was to "demonstrate that anything can be art and anyone can do it". The results can be chaos or beauty, or tread the borderline between.

With the love-hate relationship shown in this work with modern internet technologies, it is tempting to draw analogies between this approach and the all-and-nothing concepts of blogs and wikis and the concept that anyone and anything can be newsworthy.

As to the exact nature of the performance, its bewildering nature - be it a stocking-headed figure with a branch strapped to his head or Irish-accented desultory speech through a megaphone - is entirely the point. Life is bewildering, and the beauty or chaos of humanity is a direct result of that bewilderment.

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- James Dignan