The inaugural Royal Queenstown Easter Show features many new works by leading artists.

In paintings full of humour, historical irony, pathos and Christian imagery Nigel Brown places Captain Cook in the entangling arms of Maori angels. Mike Petre’s new After Stubbs works references both that acclaimed British artist’s naturalistic tradition whilst acknowledging his own iconic Field Studies Series.

Reuben Paterson’s (featured so prominently in the Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane and on the cover of the recent Art in Australia) three kowhaiwhai glitter paintings are visual poems of repeated rhythms, demonstrating his remarkable skill, restraint and mastery of a most difficult medium. Elizabeth Rees capacity to present motion and allow the viewer into the mind of her figures is as always wonderfully delivered.

Neal Palmer’s detailed botanical paintings of flax leaves, craddies and flowers present repeated form and make us conscious of that which is everywhere in New Zealand. Michael Hight’s beehive paintings have become one of the most sustained and an important body of work in recent New Zealand art, and as such the artist has altered the way many people look at our landscape and what they come to see. Garry Currin’s Journey to the Beekeepers Cottage is a narrative sequence, delivered with characteristic painterly skill and narrative complexity.

Elizabeth Thomson uses glass in a manner few can or do. She creates – as in invents – unique worlds, combining elements of what might be seen down a microscope with upholstery design devices and tonal colour studies. Luke Jacomb’s mastery of glass is such that recently he was honoured with a major survey exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The Murrine Pacifica patu works traverse the cultural dynamics of a Maori club and the European (primarily Venetian) glass making tradition.