Category: Reviews, News and Commentary

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

‘Ebb & Flow’

James Feddeck (Conductor) Andrew Beer (Violin)

Dame Gillian Whitehead, Tai timu, tai pari (world premiere)

Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2.

Auckland Town Hall, June 10

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The APO’s latest “Ebb and Flow” concert opened with a new commissioned work from Gillian Whitehead “Tai timu, tai pari”

The title translates as “low tide, high tide” and Whitehead notes that this reflects her observation from her studio window overlooking the Otago Peninsula, an area host to many seabird species including the yellow eyed penguin, red billed gull, white fronted tern, and sooty shearwater  

“The tide ebbs and flows, light plays on the water, birds forage for food, rest on the water, whirl in flocks. But it’s not a soundscape – more than most of my pieces, it harks back to exploring an idea within the traditions and proportions of the classical era.”

Central to the work was soloist Andrew Beer, Concertmaster with the APO who along with his  violin acted a commentator and observer throughout the work.

The music conveys much about the landscape, the changing light, the ebb and flow of the waters  as well as the bird life. But, with the work having been  written over the past two years of Covid there is also an underlying tension.

The opening moments of the work with its soft strings and gentle percussion along with soloist Andrew Beer created a radiant dawn with light shimmering on the waters and a host of twittering birdsong.

Beer’s urgent bowing and sharp plucking heralded birdsong but there were also times when his ferocious and often abrupt playing seems to take on the part of a human presence and an underlying darker tone.

All the instruments contributed to the impressionist depiction of the landscape the fauna and flora, the murmur of the sea, the scudding clouds and the sense of light. – the percussion instruments, the harp, brass and the woodwinds all creating descriptive sounds, revealing both the ingenuity of the instruments as well as the inventiveness of the composer.

While these sounds revealed much about the physical environment, they also provided a sense of the spiritual  and emotional reactions we have to the environment.

With much of the work the orchestra created an enigmatic background into which Beer  inserted himself. His relentless solo work was stunning, varying from the delicate to the to the dynamic, conveying  ideas of hope, wonderment and despair.

“Tai timu, tai pari” with its brilliant evocation of personal and emotional responses  to the landscape and nature is a welcome addition to contemporary New Zealand compositions and deserves to be played often.

The American conductor James Feddeck himself gave a splendid performance. At times he seemed to use his baton to  sculpt the music out of the air and at other times it was a delicate drawing instrument employed with careful movements. He conveyed tempo and energy as he moved about the podium in precise dance-like steps and at times with his actions; crouching, turning and lunging he seemed like a man possessed.

The main work on the programme was Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2, a melodious triumph in which the composer confidently comes to grips with the symphonic form after his less than successful symphony No 1. Rachmaninov once said of the work that he composed it to give expression to his feelings; his melodies proclaim his feelings to have been not only dark and brooding, but also with a romantic warmth.

Just as there was an ebb and flow to Whiteheads work here too is an ebb and flow that is integral to the music such that it feels carefully planned, flowing in an organic fashion.

James Feddeck guided the orchestra expertly. From the film score drama of the second movement to the  dynamic  shifting moods of the third movement he was in perfect control. The strings had a burnished fullness, well matched by flamboyant woodwinds and brass.

He manged to express the psychological and emotional depths of the music, without the angst of Tchaikovsky or Mahler, featuring a lot more sweetness and joy.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Dressed: Fashionable Dress in Aotearoa New Zealand 1840 to 1910

By Claire Regnault

Te Papa Press

$70.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Winner of this year’s  Ockham New Zealand Book Awards – Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction was “Dressed: Fashionable Dress in Aotearoa New Zealand 1840 to 1910” by Claire Regnault. It’s a work of scholarship and research but also one which breathes life into the many illustrated dresses and examines the ways in which women conducted themselves in the nineteenth century.

As the title suggest this is not a history of clothing but of  fashionable dress. These are the clothes of the well to do made of quality material by both  amateur and expert dressmakers.

While it is a history of clothing the book also provides a generous overview of New Zealand’ s social history of the Victorian period, one dominated by the mindset of Victorian England along with colonial adaptations.

Through the numerous illustrations and descriptions, the reader can trace the changing designs and silhouettes of the prevailing fashion. the degree of exposed neck shoulders and arms and the degree of ornamentation and decoration.

The book is filled with interesting mini histories and anecdotes. We learn of the enterprising individuals who worked as dressmakers as well as those who opened stores, imported materials and were aware of international trends.

The major stores such as Kirkcaldie and Stains Milne and Choyce  were important as they imported the new dresses from the England as well as producing their own clothes. By the turn of the nineteenth century Milne and Choyce was employing more than one hundred people in its dressmaking, millinery and mantle workrooms.

Then there are those who created fashion out of New Zealand indigenous furs and feathers for local and international consumption.

Hector and Elizabeth Liardet not only made and sold a variety of items made from of local exotic skins and furs. They also exhibited their goods at international exhibitions in Australia, London and Paris.

There is even small historical note which could let Walter Buller of the hook. While he has recently been presented as the man who single-handedly destroyed the native bird population in the late nineteenth century, the fault may lie elsewhere. Regnault notes that as a twelve-year-old boy his mother skinned and stuffed four kokako to make into cabinet specimens which he received as birthday present – a gift which may have had an adverse lifetime effect on the young man.

There is a revealing episode which occurred in 1863 when a group of Māori (ten men and four women were taken to London by an enterprising William Jenkins. They caused much news and sensation and were even presented to Queen Victoria. For much of the time when they were in public they dressed in a mixture of European and traditional clothes, indicating that they were civilized. The European  clothes were a symbol of that civilization, but some of the men in the party objected to having to wear their traditional mats as they no longer wore them in New Zealand and regarded them as “heathen.”

Many of the dresses and accessors are works of art showing not just the technical skills of the dressmaker but also a genuine creative flair  with works such as a magnificent white swan feather evening cape and a vibrant red “newspaper” costume made by Miss Munro for the  Strange and Co Department Store in Christchurch.

The book is also peoples by the fashionable people who wore the dresses. So, there is a photograph of Katherine Mansfield’s mother, Annie Burnell Beauchamp, Lady Ranfurly, Dick Seddon’s wife Louise and his daughter May in her militaristic uniform of the Lady Douglas  Contingent at the time of the Boer War. There are also fashionable Māori such as  Huria  Matenga, famous for saving many lives from the wreck of the  Delaware.

Also included is a section in full colour of example of fabrics from Te Papa’s collection showing the intricate nature, design and quality of some of the fabrics including damask, silk, cotton and velvet.

The book itself is a beautiful creation with a soft pink cover and a pink material bookmark. There are numerous full colour illustrations of dresses along with many historical photographs.

It is an important addition to books which show how New Zealand developed a local culture in art, architecture decoration and design in the nineteenth. It was a culture which was  heavily dependent on overseas models but with an increasing degree of local enterprise and creativity.

Inside Dali

Spark Arena, Auckland

Until June 30

Then

Air Force Museum, Christchurch

July 14 – August 26

Reviewed by

With the new exhibition “Inside Dali” at Auckland‘s Spark Arena the remarkable life and the full range of work by the artist is on view.

Following hot on the heels of two previous multi-media exhibitions –  “Van Gogh Alive” (also at Spark Arena) last year and “Michelangelo – A Different View” at the Aotea Centre earlier this year comes “Inside Dali”, a multi-sensory insight into some of Salvador Dali’s famous art works.

Dali was the supreme artist of the 20^th century not just because of his instantly recognisable  melting clocks, surrealist figures and objects but in his ability to create his persona  as the celebrity artist.

Where most artists are valued for their individual artworks, Dali brings to mind the man himself with his remarkable flaring moustache, his glaring face and outlandish poses. He is also one of the most enigmatic artists of the  20th century – was his art the expression of a great thinker, that of a visionary or was it the outpouring of a delirious madman.

He combined an extraordinary artistic talent along with showmanship, intellect and wit, gaining publicity not so much for the art as his own behaviour and comments on art and life.

He was not only a surrealist painter as he experimented with other art forms as well. He worked with Luis Bunuel on the films “Un Chien Andalou”, and “L’Age d’Or” which were banned in France for their sexual imagery.

He also worked with Alfred Hitchcock on “Spellbound” and later collaborated with Walt Disney on the animated film  “Destino”, a film they started in 1945 but which was not released until 2003.

There are several rooms in the exhibition providing information about the artist’s life, his relationships with other artist as well as Gala, his wife of nearly fifty years.

The exhibition provides a journey through the artists life in photographs, text and  reproductions of his works as well as immersive visual rooms. Throughout there are several themes which preoccupied the artist – notions of time, sexuality and death.

In addition to Freudian imagery—staircases, keys, dripping candles—he also used a host of his own symbols, which had special, usually sexual, significance to him alone: the grasshoppers that once tormented him, ants, and crutches, and he saw  William Tell as his father figure.

One room is showing his rarely seen controversial set of prints illustrating  Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”, a surrealist tour of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory combining the sinister with the sensual.

There is  the Mirror Room where viewers will be exposed to Dali’s surrealist work in a 360-degree setting. Here we encounter major works such as ”Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening” where two tigers leap over the naked body of Gala”, a work filled with Freudian sexual imagery.

Central to the show is a large room where the artist’s works are projected floor-to-ceiling in high-resolution moving imagery. It is an immersive experience which provides a sense of Dali’s hallucinogenic dreamscape filled with sexual, political and religious imagery with several the artist’s works which the audience  will recognise. As part of this display an illusionistic ” Dali” appears and talks to the audience about his life and ideas.

Near the beginning of the exhibition is the ideal social media setup which features a three-dimensional version of the artist’s Mae West where you can sit on the famous Mae west sofa creating your own Salvador Dali image.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

NZ Trio, Legacy 1

Auckland Concert Chamber

May 29

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

This year the NZ Trio celebrates twenty years of bringing music to New Zealanders. While two  of the original members, pianist Sarah Watkins and violinist Justine Cormack have moved on the current members,  Somi Kim (piano), Amalia Hall (violin) and Ashley Brown (cello) continue to provide a remarkable range of both classical and contemporary music. Over the last twenty years they have commissioned and played over 75 works by New Zealand composers. With each of their concerts they provide inspired programming, insights into the history music, an understanding of the technical issues related to the works

With their latest concert they presented a range of work spanning two hundred years from a Beethoven work of 1911 to a contemporary New Zealand work composed this year.

This was the  most intriguing work on the programme – a new commission from Michael Norris. His “Horizon Field Hamburg” was a response to a large art installation by sculptor Antony Gormley, famous for his “The Angel of the North.”

The installation is a vast, suspended floor with a mirror-like surfaces, seven and a half metres from the ground. The suspended floor responds to human movement and small groups are able to swing the whole floor slowly. In moving the work groups need to communicate with others evolving a collective behaviour so that Individual and group experience is mediated through vibration, sound and reflection.

It is these qualities which Norris realised in his work

Much of the time the musicians play their instruments as though they were percussion instruments, Somi Kim plucking and hitting the piano strings, and the other two using their bows to strike the stings as well as creating shimmering sounds by feathering the stings and there were times when their ferocious bowing was like an unsettling siren

They captured the idea of both physical movement and the play of light on a vibrating structure creating a sense of tension.

There was sense that they were describing a complex organisation or mechanical device which moved from being in a state of flux to an  out of control. unstable  state, exposing its fragility. In the final moments of the work the flurry of sounds saw  stability restored.

First up on the programme were two short works by Robert Schumann from his  Six Pieces in Canonic Form. The first of these which owed much to Bach was filled with an endless set of variations, developed by the players. Where the first work was almost mathematical in construction the second piece was more fluid and intimate, where the various themes were interwoven and the players seemed to be in their personal reveries.

Also in the first half was a 1998 trio by the Ukrainian composer and jazz musician Nikolai Kapustin.

The trio transformed themselves into a small jazz combo with each of them taking on the appropriate demeanour, notably Ashley Brown who became the quintessential jazz musician. Each of the players took turns in presenting themes which were explored as they fused the traditions of classical piano repertoire and improvised European-style jazz, combining jazz idioms and classical music structures.

The final work was Beethoven’s ‘Archduke,’ which because of its symphonic dimension, dwarfed the other works. It is one of composers last and most difficult pieces of chamber music, expressing exhilaration, melancholy, mystery and a search for love

Throughout, their playing they seemed conscious of each  detail of the music along with a sense that whole work was held in fine, intelligent balance. From the leisurely opening they carefully and gradually, explored the qualities of the work including the dance-like scherzo with its contrasting darker mood then giving a logical sense of flow to the Andante cantabile with some elegant playing.

With the final sublime movement, the trio created dynamic flowing ,melodies filled with sweep insistence and drama. Their playing took on an almost mystical feel and they seemed to be tracing out the dimensions of an undefined subject which was always withheld, providing a disconcerting sense of  mystery and anticipation leading up to the enthusiastic finale, where the players completed their sophisticated playing  suffused in a musical aura.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Limitless Horizon. Orex, Until June 4

Paul Woodruffe, Pop Tones, Föenander, Until May 31

Daniel Unverricht, Suite, Until June 4

Clare Brodie, Elusive Forms, Scott Lawrie, Until May 28

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Four recent Auckland exhibitions show artists looking at the natural and built environment in a variety of ways with “The Limitless Horizon” at Orexart featuring  six artists looking at the landscape from various perspectives.

Peter James Smith has several works such as “Acheron’s Measure / Milford Sound” ($9500) where mathematics, history and romanticism connect.

Martin Ball’s “Otira Gorge (after Van der Welden)” ($8500) with water shrouded boulders could have been an oil sketch by the nineteenth century artist himself. Ball is also showing some of his drawings of strips of paper as in “Remnants 3” ($4800) where the creases in the paper can be read in the context of the show, as folds in the landscape or the shifting sands of  dunes.

Richard McWhannell has some idyllic landscapes including “The Princesses and their Little Brother ($7500) which is peopled with a group from a Velasquez painting. Tony Lanes paintings link the landscapes of New Zealand with those of Trecento Italian artists in “A Way Through (the Mountains)” ($6500) as well as linking notions of medieval mysticism and   The Cloud of Unknowing with the Land of the Long White Cloud

There is also Johnny Turner’s “Red Sail (Wainui Beach/ Gisborne)” ($18,500) where the solidity, colour,  texture and detail  of the red and black granite hint at the  age and variety of the landscape. John Madden’s paintings similarly hint at the energy contained in the landscape with his bold expressionist work Tokatea ($8500).

In Paul Woodruffe’s show “Pop Tones” at Föenander many of his images exist between the real  and the fantastic. Some of the images are of recognisable locations bringing together elements of his life and environment. Within each of the works there are structures, stories and events which intersect and overlap. As a landscape designer he is probably both conscious of preserving and  landscape, understanding the landscape  as well as adapting and enhancing it.

Realist observational painting intersect with abstract designs as though there is an underlying simplicity to the landscape but also refers to the way in which we impose a geometry and design on the natural landscape.  This is all linked in “The Drawing” ($2400) where an artist is shown producing an art works surrounded by both the images of bush and houses along with a swathe of abstract designs.

In “Forest Bathing” there are three levels to the work. A realsit background in muted tones, a semi-abstract depiction of plants and then abstract shafts which reach to a canopy of abstract shapes.

“Mother”($6000) hints at the notion of Mother Earth or Gaia with a female figure tracing out arcs on an elliptical shape

Several of the paintings feature individuals in the natural environment such as “Hunters” ($3500) while in “After All” ($4500) he has  cleverly linked contemporary notions of the outdoors with Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass ($4500).

Some of  the paintings such as “Sleeping/Dreaming” ($3500) present a landscape image split in two, one in full light the other in darkness while “Moonlight Suburbs” ($1950) is a bird’s eye view of a night-time neighbourhood.

Nocturnal views of suburban New Zealand dominate in Daniel Unverricht’s exhibition ‘Sleeping Village’ at Suite Gallery where  empty streets and the dilapidated buildings of small-town New Zealand have a film noir edge to them. There is a melancholic beauty as well as a menace in the shadowy scenes such as “Linger” ($3800) and  “Chimera” ($6800).

There are also daytime images but these present an equally depressing vision with boarded up  buildings such as  Center III ($20,000) and “Insulate” ($4500) both of which look like abstract sculptural  artworks.

Several of the images are of the decaying exteriors of the rundown building with traces of weeds and fading graffiti in  “Company” ($1800)

In many of the works the artist plays with the rendering of light and colour  with a hazy impressionist approach. So, with “Cul” ($1800) the various light sources of streetlight, moonlight and house lights as well as the blurred colours and shapes make for an unsettling image.

The Australian  artist Clare Brodie showing at Scott Lawrie Gallery sees the world as composed of colour, shape and pattern with works which shimmer and jostle as though flooded with light.

Her views  of nature are reduced to flat planes with soft pastel colours, abstracting and  simplifying so the paintings look like elaborate jigsaw puzzles. The soft greens and blues  are interspersed with patches of vibrant purples, pinks and darker blues,  hinting at indistinct  man-made forms.

All the works are titled “Elusive Forms” and with many  of them one can detect the shape of a tree trunk, the canopy of  a tree, the dappled light on leaves and the forms of hedges. With some such as” Elusive Forms 4” ($12,500) the various elements are almost recognisable but then with “Elusive Forms 13” ($7950) the shapes seem random and ambiguous.

John Daly-Peoples

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Passione

Auckland Town Hall

March 14

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

“Passione” was the first NZSO concert to be held in Auckland this year celebrating its 75^th anniversary. James Judd led the orchestra, fifteen years after he conducted them for its sixtieth-year anniversary in 2007.

The three works on the programme were all linked to other creative works which explored stories about passion where the music conveyed events, ideas and emotions.

The first work on the programme was Strauss’s tone poem “Don Juan” which captures  the philandering exploits of the hero. The  frenzied swelling of the opening represented the lustful  Don Juan’s while the passionate voices of the harp, sprightly flutes and woodwinds painted expressive portraits  of his female lovers.

The second work on the programme was John Corigliano’s “Chaconne for Violin and Orchestra” written for  the score of the film The Red Violin which  traces a rare violin from Cremona, Italy, where a violin maker adds a secret ingredient to the varnish – his wife’s blood.

The work was filled with haunting themes that echo the moodiness of the tale with soloist Amalia Hall taking on the role of the violin itself. The work opened with Hall playing a tingling melody representing the birth of the instrument with tentative chords and then later playing some achingly beautiful passages which  revealed an intense fragility with a sense of the violin itself being filled with despair. Throughout the work with the soaring voice of the violin contrasted with the orchestra’s sounds full of drama and shocks.

Her voice prevailed over the onslaughts of the orchestra at times with a pure romanticism while at other times her playing was indignant and insistent as she seemed to battle with the orchestra, a battle which came to a close as she outplayed the orchestra in the final moments the of the work.

The main work on the programme was a selection of pieces from Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet”. Prokofiev’s ability to create drama, romance and grief makes the music to the ballet one of the most powerful orchestral works.

The opening work “The Montagues and Capulets” captured the mood of power and drama with an underlying attention to dance movement this was followed by a transition to the Aubade with the romanticism of the piece  conveyed by flutes and then to the light dance of Juliet herself where the sprightly orchestration creates a entrancing image of a young girl.

They also played “The Death of Tybalt” one of the most impressive and moving pieces. From the opening sinister sounds through the almost playful and hectic fight scenes  and onto the dramatic and tragic death, the work pulses with emotion.

James Judd ensured the orchestra provided a performance with an almost symphonic scope while ensuring we appreciated the balletic  nature of the work, conveying the scores colour grace and excitement.

Future NZSO Concerts

FOUR SEASONS

Vesa-Matti Leppänen Director
Anna van der Zee Violin
Malavika Gopal Violin
Simeon Broom Violin
Alan Molina Violin

Vivaldi The Four Seasons
Piazzolla orch. Desyatnikov Las Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires)

Hamilton May 20 & 21

Nelson May 26

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Tall Tales

Auckland Town Hall

May 5

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The APO’s “Tall Tales” concerts opened with Zoltan Kodaly’s “Háry Janos Suite, an impressionist tale of the quixotic, Hungarian folk hero.

The Empress Marie Louise, wife of Napoleon, falls in love with Háry and takes him to Vienna. France  declares a war on Austria in which Háry single-handedly defeats the armies of Napoleon but he realizes  he can find happiness only with his village sweetheart, Orzse, so he dismisses the Empress.

The work is a dream about the personal search for glory but also a search for nationalist pride. It is these qualities which Kodaly tries to express in the work. At the centre of this musical search is the cimbalom, a Hungarian musical instrument played by soloist Jeno Lisztes

There are sequences of  drifting landscape and militaristic display with lots of animated Hungarian melodies and atmospheric passages.

There were sequences of sorrowful strings, blasting trombones and lots of clashing cymbals as well as some jazz like interventions. Along with brass and timpani was the cimbalom which sounds like a mixture of the harp and the xylophone with conductor Gilbert Varga seemingly carried away by some of the dance sequences.

Jeno Lisztes then performed one of his own solo improvised works with a dazzling display of music and some remarkable technical skill. The cimbalom is played with two sticks but Lisztes’ speed and agility meant that it sounded as through there were at least two players  creating an avalanche of intertwined sounds and themes. Several of his variations were based on Hungarian themes but one could also detect a  clever riff on pokarekare ana.

The major work on the programme was John Adams’ Scheherazade 2

A lot of John Adams major compositions have strong political and social purpose such as “Nixon in China” and “The Death of Klinghoffer”. His “Scheherazade 2” is no different. The work is about the violence  that women suffer, even at the hands of the people who should care for them.

In the mythical  stories of the Arabian nights Scheherazade tells her murderous husband a new tantalizing tale each night for 1001 nights, thus sparing her life a day at a time. Adams saw that this account of brutality had resonances with the present day.

The four movements work has no  explicit  narrative but each part has a description with enigmatic titles. Some of these – “Tale of the Wise Young Woman – Pursuit by the True Believers” and  “Scheherazade and the Men with Beards” gives a sense of the oppressive nature of the sultans’ court while “A Long Desire” and  “Escape, Flight, Sanctuary” speak more of her personal reactions.

With the orchestra providing a lush sensual backdrop to the stories  violinist Clara-Jumi Kang  or rather her violin became the embodiment of Scheherazade in an electrifying performance. Her violin along with Lisztes cimbalom displayed a strident voice which conveyed the emotional aspects of the storytelling as well as a feeling of adventure.

In many ways this was mini opera with Kang’s  voices expressing the qualities of the heroine, moving from the harsh to the lyrical. She conveyed  through her  playing various dreamstates, sadness, coquettishness, and sensuality, morphing from  quiet introspection to rage.

In the final movement “Escape, Flight, Sanctuary,” Kang enveloped by brass and wind instruments expressed a  fierceness and vulnerability  with some frenzied bowing,

Next Town Hall concert

May 19

Conductor Gilbert Varga
Harp Ingrid Bauer

Saint-Saëns Le rouet d’Omphale
Debussy Danses sacrée et profane
Tailleferre Concertino for Harp and OrchestraMilhaud Le boeuf sur le toit
Satie (orch. Debussy) Two Gymnopédies
Ravel La valse

Reviewed by John Peoples

Robin White: Something is happening Here 

Edited by Sarah Farrar, Jill Trevelyan and Nina Tonga

Te Papa Press & Auckland Art Gallery
RRP ($70.00)

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

In “Soon the tide will turn” one of her large collaborative barkcloth works Robin White included a small image based on a painting of hers from fifty years before. It is of the building which dominates “Mangaweka” but without the old Bedford truck sitting outside. The two works illustrate her commitment to recognising place and her links to the land across time. For many artists their work is an expression of and a contemplation of their physical, emotional and spiritual connections. With White the images she has created constitute a visual diary of the places she has lived, the environments she has inhabited and the people she has encountered.

As she has previously said of her work “A consistent thread in my work it that it’s made in response to place and what’s happening around me – physical and social environments provide raw material, the inspiration and the starting point”

The new book “Robin White – Something is happening Here” brings together many of her images in a survey of her life’s work greatly expanding the readers appreciation of the artist’s work.

The book follows her career from the early successes, selling work to the University of Auckland and The Dowse through to her relocation to Kiribati. It traces out  the development of a personal style and shows the various influences on her work including her friendship with the poet Sam Hunt, high school teacher May Smith and Colin McCahon at the Elam School of Fine Arts. Threaded  though all these aesthetic influences were the teaching of Bahai which affected her social and political ideas.

Her work up till 1982 when she moved to Kiribati is quite distinctive from the latter work she would produce. Her work of the 1970’s includes images of building and landscapes of the places she encountered – Bottle Creek, Porirua,  Mt Eden, Dunedin and Harbour Cone. Some of these paintings recall McCahons line about landscapes with too few lovers but they also hint at Rita Angus’s Cass.

The large portraits of that time set in landscapes seem to link to the portraits and religious depictions of the Renaissance where the backgrounds perform a symbolic function as well as providing a sense of place.

The work after 1982 when she began living in Kiribati, touring the Pacific and the world have a different style and different outlook. As she says about arriving in her new homeland “You look one way and there is the ocean, and the other way and there is more ocean. It’s just the sense of vastness and the nothingness of space.”

A lot of these works focussed on the domestic and everyday life on the island. A series of woodblock prints from the 1990’s was inspired by a young woman with “Nei Tiein goes for  a walk” and  another of The Fisherman loses his way.” The Nei Tiein works are linked to the poems of Yeats and Blake and the Fisherman series look like Pacific reworking of biblical images and narratives.

Many of the  significant works she produced were collaborations. The first of these was with her artist friend Claudia Pond Eyley and their set of woodcuts “Twenty-eight day in Kiribati.” Later collaborations were with female artists of the island as well as artists from Tonga Fiji and New Zealand. Some of these large-scale works were on barkcloth , the images made from earth pigments and natural dyes  featuring a range of stencilled motifs of Western and Pacific art. In “Soon the tide will turn” which featured her own work she also includes Henri Matisse’s shoes and hat, a reference to the time the Frenchman spent in the Pacific.

The book provides an insight into a wide ranging and multi-layered  life where everyday life and experiences meld with symbols and metaphors creating work where the deceptive simplicity conceals a depth of enquiry and comprehension seeing order and meaning in the world.

The book itself is a beautiful production  with more than 150 full colour reproduction, numerous photographs. While the main text of the book is  by Sarah Farrar, Jill Trevelyan and Nina Tonga there are also  a number of shorter essays on particular works and aspects of the artist life by other commentators including Peter Brunt  Helen Ennis, Gregory O’Brien, Justin Paton , Linda Tyler and Haare Williams.

A major retrospective exhibition featuring more than 70 works from across White’s 50-year career – Robin White: Te Whanaketanga | Something is Happening Here – will open at Te Papa on 4 June, followed by Auckland Art Gallery in late-October 2022.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

 Heavenly Beings: Icons of the Christian Orthodox World

Auckland Art Gallery

Until September 18

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

“Heavenly Beings: Icons of the Christian Orthodox World” consists of 118 icons of the Christian Orthodox faith drawn from Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East.

These examples of devotional art which are from the mid fourteenth century through to the beginning of the nineteenth century are icons by some of the masters of the time such as Angelos Akotantos, Andreas Pavias, Nikolaos Tzafouris and Constantine Tzanes many of whom followed in the styles created by more significant artists such as Andrei Rublev.

These exhibition shows how icons had a place  in the lives of ordinary Christians, pilgrims and priests of the time. They also relate to the systems of prayer and everyday liturgical events in churches and at shrines.

Viewers of the exhibition should bear in mind that at the same time as these works were being created, artists like Piero della Francesco, Leonardo de Vinci and Titian were producing very different art works.

Where the artists of the Renaissance and later sought to create complex narratives with emotional connections as well as conceiving of a doctrinal basis and history for the church  the icon painters saw their works as a way of directing prayers.

While they  represent the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Angels, the Heavenly hosts, and events Orthodox icons, unlike Western pictures, change the perspective and form of the images so that they are not naturalistic. This is done in the belief that the works look beyond appearances of the world, and instead look to the spiritual truth of the holy person or event.

The purpose of icons was to assist in worship and the church allowed that they could be venerated although  it was never intended that they be worshiped, a distinction which often confused and divided the church authorities, Initially there was a fear that the viewer would misdirect their veneration toward the image rather than to the holy person represented in the image and for many years the veneration of icons was banned. This approach failed and to this day many in the Orthodox religion worship the physical objects and have strong beliefs in their curative powers.

The invention and development of icons can be seen as  parallel to the construction and elaboration of the complex beliefs and  liturgy of the Christian church itself. This entailed using iconography to support teachings and writings so the icon is part of the widespread public relations exercise by the church to create a brand and a belief structure which would appear to be consistent.

The church needed to have images for veneration and instruction but this also created problems. One of the main issues was how to depict The Trinity, Christ, his mother and the saints so they could be seen as divine or special but also in human form . Were these invented people like the previous iterations of gods? Did they have human characteristics or were they a different form of deity?

While the church leaders / advisors often laid down what the depiction or iconography should look like many of the aspects were left to the individual artists who followed the models of Greek and Roman gods or copied the work of previous Orthodox artists and were not concerned with innovation or originality and the exhibition also shows how the artists over this period developed their iconography, often unclear as to how to depict individuals and events.

In  depictions of the Annunciation there were issues around who were the main players. While Gabriel normally  makes the announcement to the Virgin there are different representations of the divine.  In the work by Onoufrios of Neokastro, three  shafts  from above signify The Trinity but in another a dove represents this while in another it is represented by the sole distant figure of god,

The problem of the depiction of The Trinity can be seen with other icons. In one three figures sit at a table in others there are obvious distinctions made between Father Son and Holy Spirit. There is also a problem of depicting the Trinity in scenes such as the Nativity where god is essentially separated between the heavenly figures and the earthly based Christ child.

There were  also minor technical issues such as the depiction of halos. Were they a sign of divinity? Who were they to be used on? Should they contain symbols and what size and shape should they be? Were they are some form of physical attachment to the head or merely an aura, what shape should they be and how should they  be displayed in a three-dimensional manner. The Western tradition later solved some of the  problems by dispensing with halo altogether.

The invention of stories and an allied iconography can be seen in the myth of St George. The story seems to have had  pre-Christian origins but early on was depicted as a Roman soldier with  the dragon sometimes including a princess whom he saves. The dragon presumably based on the Devil / Snake and an evolving George became a myth which fitted into Christian notions of good overcoming evil and then adopted by various parts of the church and societies ending up being the patron saint of England a long way from his Middle East origins.

Another area which had to be invented by the artists was the appearance of Christ, the Virgin and the many saints and prophets. The saints were dealt with by having their attributes or symbols attached to their “portraits”.  A more challenging aspect was the depiction of Christ  which was aided by some early appearances of his image supposedly “made without hand” which are said to have come into existence miraculously. There is no consistency to the images but this was a useful means of having an image of Christ without the artist being responsible for the accuracy.

The Virgin’s image was based on Greek and Roman models but the icons of her only occur from the fifth century. However, once a formula was created for her appearance it became a template for  other artists to use.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra

Christian Li Plays

Auckland Town Hall

April 21st

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The “Christian Li Plays” concert with the APO was the first concert this year with no restrictions on audience numbers so there was an almost full Auckland Town Hall of eager listeners.

When Christian Li took to the stage it was obvious that he was a diminutive fourteen-year-old and like all teens of that age there was a mixture of the gauche, bewilderment and astonishment to his face and posture.

But as soon as he started playing it was as though this person had been taken over by a 24-year-old. This transformation meant that his every movement and expression seemed to be channelling the  emotional energy and technical brilliance  of a mature  musician.

The  first work he played was Saint-Saëns’ “Introduction and Rondo capriccioso” which  is a showpiece allowing the violinist to display their skills. Li was technically agile producing  warm tones and taut rhythms. Following the musical notations can allow a player to show a certain level of skill but that only takes them so far. Li demonstrated that his understanding of the music meant that he was able to transform the work into something that was truly capricious with sudden changes of mood and style which resulted in an electrifying performance.

Ravel’s Tzigane is also a very difficult piece being a frenetic gypsy tune which also lightly mocks the genre. From the unaccompanied opening Li imbued the work with an exquisite yearning. As the work progressed the tempo increased and Li was involved with some hectic  tussles with the orchestra. At times he appeared trancelike as though taken over by the music while at others time there was an impish playfulness.

The concert had started with Faure’s “Pelléas et Mélisande: Suite”. From the first movements surging romantic solo cello and woodwind which capture the love of Mélisande through to the wistful well-known third movement and onto to the tragic last movement where the  clarinets and flutes sounded a final lament for her, conductor Vincent Hardaker guided the orchestra confidently and stylishly.

After the interval there were two Russian works on the programme Mussorgsky’s “Night on the Bare Mountain” and Borodin’s  “Symphony No2”. With both works the orchestra captured the essence of Russian music of the time with traces of folk and an ever-present nationalism .The Mussorgsky expresses the human experience of exposure to the elements, and the eventual relief as the terror abates with the coming of dawn. This was all dramatically conveyed by the orchestra.

With the Borodin the orchestra was in fine form capturing the heroics of the first movement, the joy of the sprightly second  movement, the ethereal and dramatic third and the energy of the carnivalesque final section.

Next APO Town Hall Concert, May 5th

Conductor Gilbert Varga
Violin Clara-Jumi Kang
Cimbalom Jenő Lisztes

Kodály Háry János: SuiteJenő Lisztes Improvisation for CimbalomJohn Adams Scheherazade.2

Kodály’s operetta tells the heroic adventures of a Hungarian peasant Háry János

Central to the piece is the sound of the cimbalom, the Hungarian zither.

Inspired by the Tales of the 1001 Nights, John Adams riffed on Rimsky- Korsakov in a ‘dramatic symphony’ for violin and orchestra about ‘a Scheherazade in our own time’, ending with ‘escape, flight, and sanctuary’ from the barbaric men subjugating her.