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Otago Daily Times

Art seen: August 6

"Exhale", Mel McKenzie (Gallery De Novo) Bokeh is a widely used style in photography and cinematography. The Japanese term refers to the creation of out-of-focus images to produce an effect of depth or dynamism through the deliberate obscuring of subject matter. What might otherwise be a needle-sharp image is rendered as a soft array of multicoloured light. The use of a bokeh style is rare in painting, but Mel McKenzie uses it to excellent effect, as displayed in her exhibition at Gallery De Novo. In a series of works depicting the streets and gardens of Dunedin, the artist has produced hypnotically ambiguous images which seem to move and shimmer. The effect is startling, though in anything other than small doses might be unnerving or disorienting for some viewers. Many of McKenzie's images depict the city at night, and it is here that the ambiguity of the scenes reaches its zenith. Stripped of the grounding image of a landform or horizon, the city is implied as much as it is illustrated, street and car lights reflecting into streaks on the wet tarmac to dazzling effect. Daytime images of the Botanic Garden and St Clair Esplanade are more instantly recognisable, but the kaleidoscopic displays of Dunedin at night may in the long run be the more effective works. "Discarded Truths and Other Tales", Peter McLaren (Moray Gallery) Peter McLaren displays several strings to his artistic bow at Moray Gallery, with mixed media work, acrylics and monotypes. McLaren's images are predominantly landscapes, and as with Mel McKenzie's paintings, it is the impression of place rather than accurate delineation which lies at the heart of his art. The acrylics are painted with a knowing, wilfully naive touch, trees and houses appearing almost as idealisations of home in the dappled imagery of a dream. Colour and emotion are at the heart of these works rather than a deliberate attempt to portray a reality of place. A similar, almost-realism is at the heart of the still life on display. With McLaren's monotypes, the dials are turned the other way. These are dark, haunted landscapes, similar to early depictions of New Zealand by the country's first European painters. Where the acrylics are airy and warm, these excellent prints depict a land still shrouded in secrets. A fascinating mid-point is achieved in two of the acrylics, Early Evening Light and Coastal Mist , in which the atmosphere of the prints is evoked in painted acrylic form. These pieces nicely capture the land's warm but uneasy welcome, as if to say that we can never be fully aware of the psychology of this place we call home. "A Murder of Jewellers" (Brett McDowell Gallery) For want of a better collective noun, a murder of local jewellers is taking part in an exhibition at Brett McDowell Gallery. The eight artists, ranging from relative newcomers to a distinguished veteran, present works which complement each other well, the broad diversity of styles and materials producing a fine display. The world of flora is a major source of inspiration, with Debbie Adamson's impressive metallic leaf pendants reflected in the forms of Ross Malcolm's forest floor brooches. Malcolm's "pod casts" and "leaf litters" find resonance with Adamson's mild steel lancewood and broadleaf. Jane Dodd's raurenga and lichen-inspired designs sit comfortably alongside these items. Octavia Cook looks at the darker side of nature, with three brooches displaying predator-prey relationships. Craig McIntosh takes the natural world to its basics with three fine pendants of polished and worked basalt. The use of embellished natural stone is also taken up by the "old master" of the group, Kobi Bosshard, with his lovely settings of polished stones within silver surrounds. Brendon Monson focuses more on the man-made, with a series of fine pieces made from recycled timber which use architectural features as their origin. Shelley Norton goes one further, using recycled and reconstituted plastic bags as the material for her brightly-coloured "Tags". By James Dignan