Art to last a year

Nelson Suter Arts Society Spring Exhibition, Suter Gallery.

Art society openings can be noisy affairs with several dozen excitable artists and all their families and frinds, not to mention the usual hangers-on, like me.

Further complicating last week's launch was the request for everyone to nominate three favourites for an arts society calendar.

During the weekend I decided to go a step further and compile my own pics from January to December.
Calendar art is a little different from real art, so first I decided that guest artist Katie Gold's work wouldn't make it. A calendar just wouldn't do justice to her bold attempt to get away from bright coloured, sure to please assemblages. Gold's family members  father and siblings  were all represented by a type of cage constucted from stainless steel rods and white clay tubes inscribed with motifs representing something of the character and interests of each person. It was a poignant tribute.

I also discounted the work of fellow guest artist Jane Crisp, impressive as it was, as I'm sure the calendar should be restricted to Nelson artists.

Crisp, from the Waikato, has a talent for detail and uses it to good effect in slightly formulaic depictions of native birds on rocks or moa's eggs  the eggs decorated with kowhaiwhai patterns. Each painting has a simple clarity, the effect of which is dissipated by the replication of eight similarly-scaled paintings stretched out in a line along the wall.

Owen Bartlett is the third guest artist and he'd be Mr January on my calendar. His work has gone from strength to strength and I'd include a photo taken from one end of the table to show the massed impact of many eroded clay forms.

The rest of the year follows in the order I found the paintings, not in any descending merit order.

February's painting would be Up the Baton, Caroline Jones's landscape, which hangs at the top of the entry staircase. No-nonsense and confident  the view through the artist's eyes with no fuss.

March is the beginning of autumn and Angela Sharland would be perfect for that. She's not afraid to use colour in unexpected way and her pastel Paton's Road Red makes a strong statement.

For April, the mood is a little more sombre, with Peter Copp's understated Ruby Bay Cliffs #4, which breaks down the elements of nature into highly structured blocks. You can almost hear the thinking behind the plan.

Back to red for May. Melita Johnson lays it on with a trowel in her abstract Mythology. I could equally have chosen Wisdom, hanging close by.

June is time to think about the meaning of life, and Jason McCormick has a strong statement in Harassed  sinister, but very bold and with great texture.

Some whimsy to liven up the winter and for July I'd have Marilyn Andrews' piece Night on the Town, which shows some very strange things hanging on her clothes line.

By August there are tiny lambs. Karen Lyttle's Sheep challenges you not to like it, even if the ears make you think it could be a rabbit.

In September you'll be yearning for foreign places. You can all but smell the atmosphere in Margaret Johnston's The Coffee Bean Girl. Painted direct on to a hessian coffee sack, there's a direct connection to be made between the unknown face and some foreign destination.

October  time to take a deep breath and meditate before the onslaught if summer. Lisa Antonelli's Sanctuary is just that  a quiet place especially noticeable in the gallery with its hustle of paintings looking for attention.

November brings Lloyd Harwood - how could you miss him out? Any one of his four paintings would work  you choose.

By the time I got to December, I still had seven paintings on my list. I fancy Wanda Tait's Tsunami painting or Margot Rowling's abstract. Lesley Haddon's whimsy, or maybe Tony Allain's deft touch. In the end,I think it has to be Michele Surcouf's nude Autumn Leaves  the coy man in big boots and pink socks is just so kinky.
This is a very good exhibition.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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