Art seen: April 10

"75 Squadron RNZAF Bomber Command veteran" by Matt Gauldie

''Expressions of War'', Matt Gauldie (The Artist's Room)

From the windows of the Artist's Room, one can look across Queens Gardens to the war memorial, ready for the Anzac Day service.

What better location for Captain Matt Gauldie's portraits of veterans, faces etched with the memories of their time in the country's service?

Captain Gauldie, official New Zealand Defence Force artist, has presented a two-part exhibition, his heavily lined oil and mixed media works surrounding a handful of small bronze sculptures.

The works have largely been crafted after time spent with World War 2 Bomber Command and army veterans revisiting wartime sites in England and North Africa.

The images are of real people, but they have been left deliberately anonymous - these are the living equivalents of the Unknown Soldier, and their anonymity emphasises the everyman and everywoman who by dint of history did extraordinary deeds.

The bronze works are memory-pieces in the sense that they are drawn from the wartime recollections of the veterans.

The bold lines and strong colours of the pictorial works make us feel as viewers that we are in the presence of the people themselves.

The artist has successfully captured the mixed emotions on the faces, the contemplation of both happy camaraderie and crushing devastation, and the wistfulness of realising the simultaneous distance and ever-presence of these memories.

"Portal beyond" by James Robinson

''Exorcise/Exercise'', James Robinson (Mint Gallery)

James Robinson could perhaps be described as Dunedin's best-known neo-Dadaist/Merz artist, though to use any pigeonholing description may be oversimplification. Perhaps he is is best described simply as James Robinson - in a class and style of his own.

Best known for his large-scale canvases, which have been distressed, burnt, spindled, mutilated, inked, scrawled over and otherwise besmirched, he has created disturbing works which are like roadmaps of a questing psyche.

In his current installation at Mint Gallery, Robinson has downscaled and slightly softened his approach, producing paper works which could almost (dare I say it) be described as friendly.

Robinson's attempt with these works is to somehow express the dichotomy of the information age: the ability to have the world's knowledge at our fingertips, and the simultaneous lack of personal privacy this entails.

The message is somewhat overtaken by the medium, though that overwhelming still leaves powerful works which live up to the exhibition's title, as both the application of skill and mental exertion and also the expelling of a mental or paranormal agency.

The works are effective abstractions, with the real message revealing itself only after repeated viewing - and with Robinson's work, repeated viewing is essential as there is so much in them.

"In the desert" by Naomi Wadsworth

''Art in April'' (Community Gallery)

The Community Gallery is showing ''Art in April'', a large group show by some 18 women who have formed a loose arts collective over the past few years. The work is of varied styles and subject, and also of varied quality, though the vast majority of the work is impressive and the best is very good indeed.

Most of the works fall into two classes, paintings and prints, though there are a few works in other media such as ceramics, collage, and photography.

Though every viewer will no doubt find something different of interest, this reviewer's eye was caught by several of the printed works, among them a fine embossed and etched harbour view from Heather Maxwell, Heather Dunckley's woodcuts of local buildings, Judy Smith's strong woodblock portraits, and some fine low-key work by Nadia Kevill.

Among the paintings, Janet Smith's bold My city stands out, as does work by Mary Thompson and Diane Warren, and a Brighton beach scene by Irina Schreiber.

The stars of the exhibition, though - to my mind at least - are a series of fine oil and pastel portraiture essays by Naomi Wadsworth which excellently capture mood, location, and expression.