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Otago Daily Times

Connection explored in collections

An impressive showing of more than 500 portraits are now on display at a Gore art gallery, alongside a transtasman artist's study of New Zealand's largest glacier. Australia-based artist Euan Macleod painted hundreds of images of friend and fellow artist Geoff Dixon while they were on video calls together, beginning in the Covid lockdowns, after Mr Dixon's partner died. Macleod said his friend was a mostly willing and, at times, difficult subject that he painted rapidly, finishing up each painting in about 30 minutes. The 521 acrylic images have taken over the largest curved wall of the Eastern Southland Gallery. The show had its official opening on Saturday and an artist talk on Sunday morning, moderated by Macleod's longtime friend and collaborator Gregory O'Brien. The exhibition also includes a collection of works entitled "Flux", which are studies of Macleod's climbs of the Haupapa/Tasman Glacier in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park. The artist was born in Christchurch and went to the Ilam School of Fine Arts at Canterbury University before moving to Sydney. The mountain-climbing paintings feature ambiguous figures trekking through the frozen scenery. A brightly coloured climber's rope is featured throughout the works, which cuts through the chilly, blue abstracted landscapes and connects his subjects. The climbers were "umbilically linked" during these climbs — although you might not be able to see your partner, you could feel their presence through the tension of the rope. "There's something really good about that reliance on people," he said. At the discussion on Sunday, Macleod put emphasis on the collaborations with his old friends and fellow creatives. The large metal etchings, zigzagged together to become a sculpture in the middle of the gallery, echoing the form of mountains, were an example of that collaboration as it was made with his friend, Townsville-based printmaker Ron McBurnie. The sculpture has been gifted to the gallery. A larger, more fantastical painting of figures crossing a tightrope over the sky and what looks like the Tasman Sea is also featured. "The bridge between Australia and New Zealand," Macleod said. Although he subscribed to the "look and put" school of painting and therefore did not place a whole lot of meaning on his images, it was hard not to notice a theme of connectivity throughout the collection. His works are on show until July 13.