RWC edition - 13 October

The team from Big Lamington is still over in New Zealand and fresh from cheering on the Wallabies in a thrilling quarter-final at the Cake Tin was able to snoop around a couple of Wellington galleries today. On the agenda were Bowen Galleries and Suite Galleries from our last outing and a new location in the Peter McLeavey Gallery.

First up was Suite who are showing Roger Boyce's show 'Painter Speaks'. This is a series of landscape paintings with a ventriloquists dummy head transposed over the top. Roger is trying to comment on the man made nature of art but I did find it a little creepy. The landscapes themselves were quite majestic, especially the mountains (they have big mountains here in NZ). Luckily for the friendly proprietors at Suite the public are eating it up. Plenty of red dots everywhere. Next up was Peter McLeavey, the entrance of which is tucked up under the stairwell to Suite. I can see why I missed this one last time - blink and you miss the door which opens up into quite a bright little white room where Nick Austin is showing 'Interesting Chewing Gum'. Interesting name. These are real minimalist works and you have to get that genre to get at the prices. I know plenty of punters who would see that and say $2k for a bad drawing of a cup? Final destination was the Bowen Galleries who always seem to have a handful of artists up on show. My top pick here was the window piece with Gregor Kregar's 'Matthew 12:12 Cup 2011' which are little sculptures of sheep wearing various international rugby jerseys. They come in all sizes and look great in a big group but you can buy big ones individually or small ones in sets of 15 at prices from $600 to $4k. There was a nice Australian #6 available and if the Wallabies can get past the ABs this week then the ovine Elsom may be another great little souvenir.

Points. I think you can guess where I am going here. 3 to Gregor and the sheep. I am a big on the use of iconic images and the sheep is iconic in Aoteoroa. 2 to McLeavey's based primarily on the friendly proprietor who provided a good overview of Nick Austin and gave a great heads up about a show at the City Gallery that is now on our agenda. 1 to Suite, whose next show on Ans Westra looks like it could also get a run here.