A richness of paintings, works on paper and sculpture comprises the Summer Show at Milford Galleries Dunedin. Featured artists include Nigel Brown, Lorene Taurerewa, Stanley Palmer, Gary Waldrom, Marc Blake, Simon Edwards, Andy Leleisi’uao and Mervyn Williams.

Painters Robert Ellis, Ray Ching, and Neil Frazer are represented by works significant in both scope and scale. Frazer’s obvious enjoyment of the painting process is seen in every solid swirl of paint on the canvas; the implausibility of its subject matter and deft realism of its execution combine in Ray Ching’s contradictory The Crowing Cockerel, the Fox and the Wallaby while Ellis’ glowing Ra Tapu Te Rawhiti 3 Hune 1990 is replete with symbols sourced from both Maori and European narratives.

Strong forms and patterns thread through the 3-dimensional works on display. The exuberance of Sue Hawker’s pate de verre vessels and minute detailing in Neil Dawson’s laser-cut wall sculptures are complemented by the calm simplicity evidenced in works by Ann Robinson, Graham Bennett and Wendy Fairclough. The roughened texture and rusty tones of Hannah Kidd’s curvaceous Urn find unexpected echoes in Paul Dibble’s magnificent bronze Dawn and Dusk figures.

The photographic works on display reveal a diverse range of concerns and practices. Wayne Barrarr takes a traditional mountain view and turns it into an intimate picture; Christine Webster’s Le dossier works are also intimate, but confront and disturb the viewer. Young photographers Richard Orjis and Shigeyuki Kihara are both interested in visual constructions of society; Orjis examines ideas of conspicuous consumption and Kihara the role of the colonial gaze in fashioning images of Pasifika culture.