With lighter tools

Christchurch seems so far away to comment on an exhibition. However, since the closure of the Auckland City Gallery, more or less (the newer wing remains open but only offers predictable views of the collection), Christchurch has taken on the mantle as being the biggest and best of the country.

And they are standing straight against the wall, on tip-toe, rising to the opportunity with a stream of well-curated shows of New Zealand artists, many documented with books, which are then packed off to tour north.

Ricky Swallow Watercolour, taken on from the Queensland Museum with no other New Zealand venues, is an impressive exhibition to offer audiences.

Swallow is Australian, rising rapidly to fame with his amazingly carved realistic sculptures, mainly in themes dealing with memento mori (some virtuoso renderings of skeletons) and contemporary still life, produced from single blocks of wood; the labour and skill involved making one dumbstruck.

Swallow now lives in Los Angeles and shows in galleries all over the world.

But this exhibition shows another side to Swallow. For the personality one would ascribe to a woodworker of such calibre would be one that is careful and patient, painstaking at his work and extraordinarily accurate.

No doubt Swallow must be all of these things. But with the media of watercolours it is Swallow's chance for relax mode, after months of chipping and sanding. These are when he can enjoy the freedom of fluid paint.

And he relishes it with an expressive style, splashing watery colour that bleeds and blends, producing works with a tender and fragile beauty, a loosely reigned order.

Mostly, or what strikes one first, there are portraits. These, in spite of the wash and swirl, are much individualised. Some of the faces are frightening and with menace, others carry subtler currents of anxiety, but most, to some extent, disturb. The Ned Kelly series framed more on rock star Mike Jagger playing the role in the 1970s film than the historical character are paintings that feature the renegade's face with a steely penetrating glare. At once these are highly disciplined works and yet also carry much expression in the relaxed use of the paint itself, creating the sensation of the image seeming to magically appear within the washes of paint.

Many of the other faces are inspired from the pictures on record covers, part of the off-beat methodology Swallow uses. But there are other themes studied, some looking as if they are the artist at play and others the working through of ideas that in time may be taken to wood.

There are a whole series of his workbooks on show, full of informal notations and collected images that lend a sense of intimacy.

Even the books that house the drawings are of interest, an odd motley collection of bound workbooks and old books purchased second-hand, battered with paint and scuffs, from travels and use, a brilliantly messy collection so at odds with his perfected woodwork.

More than 80 works are in the exhibition, which ends on February 21.

- © Fairfax NZ News