New stars from the Wallace collection

Seen Recently: Emerging Artists from the Wallace Arts Collection
Northart
Northcote Shopping Centre
Until May 1

While the Pah Homestead is showing some of the great works of New Zealand contemporary art from the Rutherford Trust, a show on the North Shore is showing an exhibition from the Wallace Arts Trust of emerging artists which has been curated by this writer.

The Wallace collection is in many ways a record of the history and development of contemporary art in New Zealand, providing an overview of emerging and established artists. Seen Recently provides a small snapshot of the larger diary of work from the collection.

It is intended to showcase the more recently bought works from the collection, as well as presenting those by newer artists. 

The Seen Recently title also refers obliquely to the book Seen This Century by Warwick Brown and several of the artists included in the show were also in the 2005 book, including Gary McMillan, Ruth Cleland, Alexander Bartleet and Nick Wall.

The works are a disparate group, and while no attempt has been made to select to a theme there are certain ways in which the show appears to generate common narratives and common approaches and ideas, as well as connections between the works.

Purchases for the collection are essentially the decision of Sir James Wallace and reflect his interests in art, as with any collector. Often the works reflect the wide interest he takes in various organisations and artists.

Irene Ferguson’s Factory probably entered the collection because it depicts part of the tanning process – the Wallace Corporation is involved in meat rendering and hide production. It is, however, a fine example of traditional realist painting with a post-impressionist sense of light and atmosphere.

Ben Cauchi’s photograph Cottage has come to the collection partly as a result of Sir James’s involvement with the McCahon House Residency and was one of the first produced when he was one of the McCahon House resident artists in 2011.

Like much contemporary photography, the work functions on a variety of levels. It is a documentation of the McCahon cottage where he lived for many years, there is also a reference to the daguerreotype of the 19th century, plus the sepia-toned early 20th century photographs of artists such as George Chance.

There are also references to Colin McCahon in the work of Scott Gardiner and Dean Proudfoot.

Gary McMillan’s Scene #8 is a painting that transcended space and time and makes the viewer think beyond the usual bounds of the canvas.

An 'old sci-fi' feeling

The almost-monochrome painting of two people standing on an empty motorway and staring into the distance has an "old sci-fi" feeling about it, posing such questions as what they are looking at, and why are they standing on an isolated motorway, giving rise to a back-story: how did they get there, and why?

That question somehow links to the painting Level 2 by Ruth Cleland (McMillan’s partner and also used as a model in his work), which offers another slightly surreal view of the built environment.

Many of the works in the show relate to the notion of transformation, and of the artist changing objects, figures and ideas.

So with Louise MrcRae's work is appears that cast-offs and the rejected are given new life as a construction, just as the discards which Alexander Bartleet assembles create a new and novel narrative about the throw-away world and recycling.

While the paintings by Gary McMillan and Irene Ferguson depict naturalistic figures, several other works take a more abstract approach which draw attention to the notions of alienation of the individual within society.

Hugo Lindsay’s untitled painting is a reference to the blurred images of photographs censored, pixilated or rejected, and Nicola Farquhar’s Shireen is a cross between a police identikit image and a quirky passport photo and surreal photo shoot.

The landscape works show a range from the naturalistic to the surreal, with Olivia Barnes’s Painting #81 a hovering between the abstract and the realist.

The traditional still life is represented by Stafford Allpress’s sculpture Manual Table and Alexander Bartlett’s Dots, but their approach is more than mere representation, providing an elaboration on both the objects as well as the notion of the still life.

The extent and range of the Wallace Arts Trust collection is replicated nowhere else in the world, providing a unique artistic and cultural history which is a remarkable resource – not merely for now, but in the future it will be seen as a project of immense and lasting value.