Chauncey Flay
Leigh Martin
14th October - 14th November 2021
Flay and Martin are both artists for whom process, the way they work materials, profoundly affects what we see.
Leigh Martin tips and pulls paint across surfaces – and sometimes, as in the series Shallow Depth, a colourless interference paint influences what we see. From different angles and proximities of viewing, the layers of colour beneath either sing or are diminished. The works appears to change and to flicker before our eyes. They can be wonderfully seductive, and their flat surfaces appear to be flecked and to be moving in shallow depth or space.
Chauncey Flay works stone in similar ways. The texture and detail of surface is important, as is the negative space between those surfaces. In this body of work, greywacke from different quarries in the North Island is sometimes left raw and fractured as it came from the earth; and then at other times it has been slowly polished – a delicately grained, smooth reflective surface offering rich contrast to the rougher stone alongside.
So although very different materially, this exhibition is a beautiful study in form and aesthetics – an elegant experience indeed.
