Megan Campbell’s latest exhibition Patina brings her imagery forward from the Victoriana of previous works. Now her paintings reference the era of the 1950’s and 60’s, describing an idealism and a certain hyper-reality about that period. Campbell has a trademark ‘naïve’ figurative painting style, and she creates rich and glossy surfaces that are assisted by the use of enamel bitumen washes for depth and intensity, as well as bright and ‘optimistic’ colours that further the sentiments about the Idealistic period of time she is describing.

In some of the works, there are faded ghostly figures that hover like delicate lace behind or near the more contemporary figures, and strike a close resemblance to the Victorian figures from Campbell’s recent earlier painting. These ghostly figures link the artist’s bodies of work, and there emerges an overlapping and visible chronology of subjects. The incorporation in Patina of the ghostly Victorian figures emphasises the theme of history in the work of Megan Campbell.

These paintings show figures in gardens and other ‘pleasant’ outdoor settings such as playgrounds, and public and private gardens. The sites are resplendent with dreamlike distortions and strange perspectives that enhance the (deliberate) naïve styling, and on the whole there is a balanced sense of subjective (childhood) worldview, and objective idealism.

There is a New Zealand-ness about the luscious flora – with some recognisable plants. And there are other specific examples of kiwiana, including the Rotorua Bathhouse (For Joanna M Paul) in the painting by the same name, and the tire swing in Cosmos Bipinnatus.

The works in Patina are layered with historical references to personal aspects of childhood as well as referring to common collective experience. The childlike sensibility is eloquently expressed: Flowers are larger than life and ‘compete’ with the figures; perspectives are distorted; and pattern and repetition are thoroughly explored. The outdoor settings have an indoor / stage like quality to them which neatly refers again to childhood and to the mini dramas or escapist performances that children preoccupy themselves with. These paintings are not overtly sinister, but the dark, looming, dense backgrounds, and the spaciousness of some of the garden scenes, implies a more melancholy balance to the cheeriness of the play. It is within these darker tracts, sometimes emphasised by the triptych format (see Twilight Specimens) that ominous aspects of family, society, history, memory, and place can be read. On the whole, a very fine narrative balance is apparent in this new work by Megan Campbell.