The Royal Queenstown Easter Show 2016 presents important new works across various media and a number of extraordinary older works of museum standard. It commences with Paul Dibble’s trademark humour and biting irony: the pestilent rabbit of Central Otago is now armed and fighting back.

Neil Frazer’s Tarn Shelf (2015), Dick Frizzell’s Shaded Track (2012), Simon Edward’s Uplift (2015) and Michael Hight’s Kyeburn Station (2015) each present quite different aspects of the Central Otago landscape: its numerous realities, complex moods, mutable atmospheres, and how it is farmed and used.

Brent Wong’s astounding Snowstorm (1973) is a surreal allegory, imbued with portent and endless mystery. Neil Dawson’s Black Halos works recompose space, using the vagaries of altering shadow and recessive pattern. Pat Hanly’s wonderfully abstracted heart-shaped figure A Young Love - Torso P (1977) is strewn with sensations and joy.

Karl Maughan’s compelling Kaiwhara (2015) entices the viewer to walk alongside the rhododendrons and then go deeper into the garden. Much is likewise suggested and abruptly changed by Terry Stringer’s morphing images in Figure in a Landscape (2009) and Turning Head (2015).

Plain Song: Eschoscholzias (2001) by J S Parker is a masterful visual hymn to summer and the connections between land and sky. Reuben Paterson’s beautiful Aroma of Black series of paintings traverse the traditions of floral design and Dutch still life, harnessing the light refracting properties of glitter in his unique, acclaimed manner.

John Edgar’s sympathy and understanding of stone is as rare as it is remarkable, as demonstrated in the sublime Bomb (2015).

Now in its seventh year, the Royal Queenstown Easer Show also features key works by Charlotte Handy, Andy Leleisi’uao, Ann Robinson, Nigel Brown, Hannah Kidd, Simon Clark and Merilyn Wiseman.