James Dignan
(Bellamys Gallery)
‘‘FORESTS AND FIELDS’’ is an intriguing joint exhibition featuring the work of Manu Berry and Luke Hancock. The styles of the two artists are wildly dissimilar, yet the works counterbalance each other well.
Berry is perhaps the betterknown of the artists, with his impressive largescale woodcut prints. Berry provides the forests in this exhibition, with a series of lovely works depicting native birdlife. Images such as Kakariki display his skill, with highly detailed feathers and woodgrain depicted in a stark yet simple and effective palette, so that the bird appears to be separate from and an intrinsic part of its background. A delicate series of works depicting tui and a charming miromiro are also standouts, as is the repeated motifs of three depictions of tauhou.
If Berry provides the forests, the ‘‘fields’’ are Luke Hancock’s. Punningly, they are colour fields — minimalist geometric abstractions, several of them showing the influence of late Marlborough artist, J.S. Parker. The influence is not overwhelming, however, and there is strong originality in many of the works. Three Vertical Lines/Echo (Imaginations Highway) is powerful, as are The Fall and Blue Rotation. It would be good to see Hancock’s works writ large, as the combination of blocks of textured colour would benefit from scale, gaining an increase in their already strong psychological power.