James Dignan ‘‘Atoms and Opinions’’, Garry Currin
(Milford Gallery)
Garry Currin has produced another impressive display of work in ‘‘Atoms and Opinions’’.
His work continues to straddle the line between abstraction and landscape, with the major elements of the work now moving strongly towards the latter.
The detail within the scenes is still deliberately vague, allowing the paintings to remain images of some fuguestate land, forever just out of grasp of the real world.
We are left with impressions of place, guided as much by our own mental processes as by the intentions of the artist.
Many of Currin’s landscapes are drenched in rich tones, the two ‘‘Late Fragment’’ works in particular being as if frozen in amber.
The golden yellows and deep earthy browns have long been a hallmark of Currin’s art, although now they are also tempered by the rich sky blue of Atoms and Opinions III.
Three of the works on display retain the artist’s longstanding interest in monochrome works. These black and white paintings retain more of the abstract edge of Currin’s earlier images.
The undoubted star of the show is a massive work on unstretched canvas, The Light of One Day: Untitled Approach, its 3m length depicting a dreamscape of New Zealand coastline foregrounded by blurring land, as if pictured from a moving glider skimming over the hilltops.