The Art of Language

Judy Darragh, International Beggar
Two Rooms
Until December 7

Andrew Barber, Flags
Hopkinson Mossman
Until November 16

Peter James Smith, On Measuring the Ocean
Orexart
Until November 30

Fiona Pardington, An Answering Hark
Two Rooms
Until December 7

Several exhibitions on at the moment emphasis the use of language in different ways. In one case language is the artwork while in other the language provides a parallel or intersecting commentary.

Judy Darragh’s exhibition “International Beggar” at Two Rooms consists of large photographs of the signs made by homeless people on sheets of corrugated cardboard.

The artist purchased the signs, photographed and enlarged them, presenting them in a large scale format

They all make use of similar language with “International Beggar #4” ($5500) reading

SPARE CHANGE FOR
FOOD + SHELTER
THANBK YOU
GOD BLESS YOU

In presenting the rough, ripped cardboard sheets with their urgent writing, the artist has made the signs into much crisper versions of themselves as well as turning them into images resembling advertisements about social issues, transforming the plight of the individual into a universal social problem.

This appropriation of language is also a feature of Andrew Barber’s exhibition at Hopkinson Mossman Gallery where he has used the international nautical signal flags to create a set of flags in bare canvas ($3450 each), which represent a specific letter or in some cases particular messages.

The artist has pared these flags back, eliminating the colour, the geometric shapes of the flags created by stitching the pieces of canvas together, the shapes created by texture and the play of light on the surface.

Many of the actual nautical flags look like geometric abstract works by artists such as Frank Stella but with the colour removed they look like more like studies or drawings for those artist’s work - they are abstractions of abstractions.

In the main gallery is a large work “Yankee” ($17,500), which is free standing and at an angle to the wall, revealing the rear of the work, which shows the stitching of the diagonals patches that make up the work. Resembling a large sail, it sits on the floor, which has been painted with a series of blue and white wave like bands, symbolizing the sea.

The architectural nature of the work resembles some of the interventionist painting of Judy Millar making it more of sculptural work.

Language is also a feature of the Peter James Smith exhibition at  Orexart where he is showing a series of work related to his recent expedition to the Southern Ocean and places such as Macquarie Island and Auckland Islands.

Most feature the islands themselves capturing the landscape, but others emphasise the sea and sky to a greater extent. Overlaid on these paintings the artist has used a variety of languages to extend our understanding and awareness of the landscape.

There are texts describing the island, poetry, diagrams and scientific formulae which he uses to demystify and explain the nature of natural phenomenon

In “On Measuring the Ocean” ($18,500) which depicts a stormy sea, the artist includes a mathematical model for the statistical distribution of wave heights.

With works like “The Wandering Albatross” ($4500), which has lines from Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, he interposes a poetic take on the landscape as well as linking the viewer to the romantic notions of the sea and travel.

One of the works, “Seeing Forever” ($12,000) has something of a reference to Michael Parekowhai's work, which went to the Venice Biennale two years ago. In this painting the artist takes a quote from Keats’ On First Looking into Chapman Homer, which refers to Cortez gazing out over the Pacific for the first time. Peter James Smith returns the gaze from the outer edge of that ocean.

The paintings are of the landscapes of the island and the ocean but they are also documents about geography, history and discovery. “Arrival at Macquarie Island” ($7500) provides a link to the history of the island as recounted in Geoff Chapple’s play, Hatch, which tells of the commercial slaughter of penguins at the beginning of the 20th century. In the painting the artist recreates the hordes of birds which populate the island.

The artist's skill in deftly capturing landscape forms, sea and sky, along with bringing a scientists eye and perceptions to the natural phenomenon, makes the paintings intriguing and enlightening.

Fiona Pardington's exhibition at Two Rooms makes use of a symbolic language as well as the language of flowers and textual and art references.

The exhibition, An Answering Hark, is of a series of photographic works produced while she was the artist in residence at the McCahon House in Titirangi.

The works are part of a broader series of works she has been producing of still life constructions which relate to the Northern European tradition of the still life and momento mori which are an artistic or symbolic reminder of the inevitability of death and often included symbols of mortality such as skulls, or flowers losing their petals.

Pardington's photographs, set against a dark background, have a number of references to McCahon and his use of symbols as in “Still Life with Talia’s bouquet, snuffed candle and Pounamu Arahura ($12,000). The snuffed candle is a reference to McCahon’s own painting “A Candle in a Dark Room.”

All the works are photographed on a white table like the altar slabs McCahon used in his series of works the Visible Mysteries and the use of the heart associated with these slabs is repeated by Pardington in several of the works.

There is a direct reference to the environment in which she was working with a glimpse of the outside world in “Still Life with Colin’s Flagon with Precarious Kowhai Flowers and Pansy” ($7000). This small window is similar to the windows and gates that admit light in several of McCahon’s works. The flagon is a reference to the artist's problems with alcohol.

The various flowers and fruits probably have their own symbolic characteristics and along with the more exotic and erotic objects - dried Portuguese man-o-war, a gold dildo, various skulls, spoons and slave collars, they provide a complex language which manages to provide something of a contemporary momento mori reflecting on death and life.