Art seen

"Signs and Symbols: Decoding Mediaeval and Renaissance Iconography", Reed Gallery, Dunedin Public Libraries  

[1] Wall Carrel 5, bv Illumination and Colour (Cutting from a Gradual, in Latin, 16th Century).
The identification and search for meaning behind the visual arts is known as iconography.

Some of the earliest studies date to the 16th century and consisted mainly of emblems and symbols, accompanied by explanatory text.

The 35 manuscripts on display at the Reed Gallery focus on such emblems and symbols and date from the 13th to the 16th centuries. They are drawn from the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection, the second-largest collection of such manuscripts held by a New Zealand institution.

Christian iconography lies at the heart of this exhibition with a combination of illuminated manuscripts and printed books.

Three Latin Bibles and a facsimile of the Gutenberg Bible make up the exhibition, along with other manuscripts covering such themes as major biblical scenes and imagery used to preface individual sections in a Book of Hours.

The exquisitely printed books are of a high artistic and technical quality, while the illuminated manuscripts consist of hand-painted Latin verse decorated with illustrations from classical imagery.

These images are painted in rich, diverse colours and the use of gold-leaf for illumination is a major feature - a symbol of divine light.

The finesse and intricacy of the work is an indication of both the artistry and craftsmanship of the artists. With each exhibit, a detailed explanation of the symbolism involved is given.

"Laurence Aberhart", Brett McDowell Gallery 

[2] War Memorial, Dunrobin-Edievale, Otago, 11 December 2010, by Laurence Aberhart.
Laurence Aberhart has led the way in contemporary New Zealand photography since the 1970s, and is increasingly recognised as a major international figure.

The work for this exhibition is very recent, with the exception being The Prisoner's Dream, a series of five photographs which date from 1999 to 2000.

Aberhart's quiet yet powerful photographs of disused buildings, their interiors and exteriors, landscapes, graveyards and war memorials set in rural New Zealand bestow a sense of the past.

The photographer's use of a 19th-century plate camera and a special developing process that can take many hours in the darkroom illuminates these small, uniform black-and-white photos; their rich, dark shadows and brilliant light, along with their absence of figures and their depth of detail and clarity, give a gravity to the work.

The subject matter is centrally placed, resulting in compositions that are beautifully balanced, especially those of Mount Taranaki.

The sky is often a dominating feature, though not necessarily the subject of the photos, such as Taranaki from Koputama Cemetery, near Stratford, Taranaki, 1 June 2010, in which the enormous cloud-filled sky fills the bulk of the picture plane.

The ceiling in the interior shots can also be a dominating feature, as in Interior #3 hall, Tataraimaka, Taranaki, 22 May 2010, the light fitting distorted by the wide-angle lens. However, the more one looks at Aberhart's images, the more natural the subject seems.

"2011 City of Dunedin Art Awards", Otago Art Society

[3] Now I'm Not So Sure, by Jasmine Middlebrook.
There is a large variety of impressive artwork on display at this year's City of Dunedin Art Awards, hosted by the Otago Art Society at the Art Station.

The 170-odd exhibits that fill the gallery come from around Otago and beyond and are mostly pictorial, though jewellery, ceramics and stoneware make welcome additions, with Debbie Adamson's powder-coated copper, rubber and stainless steel brooch and John Paxie and Madeleine Child's ceramics particularly eye-catching.

The paintings displayed represent a range of media and the subjects and styles are varied and diverse.

Landscapes and townscapes appear to dominate the exhibition, with particularly fine work from well-known artists such as John Toomer, Murray Ayson, Graham Tait and Maurice Middleditch to name only a few.

A touch of cubism can be seen in Patterson Parkin's colourful and textured Busker and whimsy is certainly the case with Jasmine Middlebrook's thought-provoking work, Now I'm Not So Sure.

There is something for everyone in this exhibition. I was particularly drawn to Norman Hunter's beautiful pencil studies of Dunedin's heritage buildings, Robert Ireland's Landscape with Willow Trees, an impressionistic work using thick brushstrokes and clever use of paint in a limited palette of greens, browns and creams, and Peter Gregory's elegant and richly glazed stoneware vase.

- Julie Jopp