‘‘Putai tau, Putai aho’’
(Eskdale Gallery)
‘‘Putai tau, Putai aho’’ is a group exhibition featuring the work of acclaimed artists (in alphabetical order) Barry Cleavin, Murray Eskdale, Scott Flanagan, Anet Neutze, Ben Webb and Marilynn Webb. According to gallery director Murray Eskdale, the exhibition’s title translates as ‘‘from the land far away’’ and refers to the arrival of settlers (colonisation) to Aotearoa New Zealand. My own forays into the title’s meaning brought up words like sea foam
(putai) and threads (aho), both of which seem somewhat apt. If there are any references to colonisation, however, they are muted and subtle. The titles of Barry Cleavin’s four works (Jack London, Joseph Conrad, Edgar Alan Poe
and Herman Melville) could, to varying extents, allude to explorers and travellers. Or Anet Neutze’s watercolour portraits of flowers, such as Orchid #2 (and Orchid #3) and Cranberry #2 could be interpreted as plant arrivals, yet there is also a native plant, Horopito #3.
In the general sense of aho meaning threads, Eskdale has woven together a stellar selection of works, from his own largescale photographs to Neutze’s charismatic watercolours, print works from two of this country’s finest practitioners, Cleavin and Marilynn Webb, a large figure study by Ben Webb and complex graphite drawings by Scott Flanagan featuring his recurring rhombus motif.