Small Works (2012)

The Small Works exhibition features painting, sculpture, photography, glass and ceramics. Neil Dawson’s abstract colour-field new Pulse Disc’s explicitly reference the swarming radiating earthquakes which have so transformed Christchurch and all who live there. Sally Smith’s bronzes marvellously capture sensations of flight, movement and pattern. Darryn George’s abstract works likewise use repetition, locating visual rhythms and pattern inside formalist structures, painterly texture and cultural dynamics.

Exhibited for the first time is a powerful suite of stump paintings by Mike Petre. Observations about how we treat our land and the environmental concerns encapsulated are also to be seen in Simon Edward’s fire-infused paintings or (more slowly) revealed in the fluxing, dreamscapes of Garry Currin and the deceptive innocence of Tony Bishop’s dialogues of rural unease.

Alice Rose’s monochromatic vases exhibit a remarkable visual literacy and a rare ability to play tricks of the eye with volume, proportion and spatial depth. Katherine Smyth introduces to the vase form the naturalistic language of the squash. Sue Hawker deconstructs the traditional vase form with the pate de verre method and a visual language that allows negative space – the holes – to contribute and function.