Preview: arts week, May 14-20

Chris Heaphy

Mautakere

Lorne St

May 16 to June 9

Mind-blowingly complex and impossibly intricate images colonise the paintings in Chris Heaphy’s new exhibition Mautakere.  

Although each symbol could be interpreted in various ways, the viewer is challenged to consider the sum of their parts in a rich array of colour and densely layered meaning.

The eye oscillates between the elaborate imagery and the greater composition, and both in the act honing in and panning out, ever increasing images-within-images are revealed.

The endless silhouetted shapes appear to be at once vast, on a giant macro scale as if observing constellations in the night sky and at the same time as if peering down a microscope reveal an otherwise invisible world of tiny molecular arrangements of matter, like DNA, bacteria or viruses.

Heaphy is interested in identity and here he shows us how things exist, multiply and fit and evolve together to be a part of the seemingly never ending mystery that is life.

The exhibition title Mautakere or Floating Mountain offers glimpses into new complex spaces.

Spaces such as sharp silhouetted symbols are accented with other imagery to create different spaces and times.

Among many and varied images, mountains appear from out of a haze that hover or float in a dream like presence, provoking ideas of journey and memory.

Mautakere also refers to the mountain of the same name, near Amberley in the South Island.

The mountain holds particular resonance for Ngai Tahu Maori as the summit is believed to be the starting point for departing souls on the journey to the afterlife.

Auckland Philharmonia
Auckland Town Hall
May 17, 8pm

Giordano Bellincampi CONDUCTOR
Andreas Boyde PIANO

Stravinsky (arr.) Star-Spangled Banner
Bloch Hiver-Printemps, 2 Poems
Ravel Piano Concerto in G
Dvorak Symphony No 9, From the New World

Dvovak’s Symphony No 9 was composed during a visit to the United States and inspired by Native American music and African-American spirituals.

NZ Trio
Woven Strands,
NZ Music Month
Maori Court, Auckland Museum
Sunday, May 27, 7pm

The NZ Trio will showcase contemporary works by Kiwi composers surrounded by some of the museum's significant taonga.

Lyell Cresswell: Moto Perpetuo – NZ Trio Commission
Victoria Kelly: Sono
David Farquhar: Woven Strands
Jack Body: Pain in the A*** – NZ Trio Commission, Auckland Premiere
Rachel Clement: Shifting States – NZ Trio Commission
Anthony Ritchie: Piano Trio

www.nztrio.com

Gary McMillan
Fhe Gallery
Until June 15

The Quiet Earth
The Film Archive, Auckland
Until June 16

Gary McMillan creates images of everyday surroundings while referencing the world of old science and film noir films.

A fascination with film and its relationship to painting is prevalent in his works.

McMillan's images evoke a cinematic experience - the moment of suspense before something happens, or just following.

The images used for his paintings are taken from films that McMillan makes for the sole purpose of referencing.

The environments are a familiar Auckland, yet his treatment of landscape and light creates a tension between what is seen and unseen and play with the notion of time.