ART REVIEW: ILLUMINATED - GOLD AND GLASS.

Illuminated: Gold and Glass
Juliet Best and Jark Pane

Muse Gallery, Havelock North
11 March - 7 April

The latest exhibition at Muse Gallery in Havelock North is a successful collaboration between landscape painter Juliet Best and glass artist Jark Pane.

Best’s paintings verge on the semi-abstract; Best describes her painting style as allowing her paint the freedom to interpret the beauty of New Zealand rather than being representational. The landforms, strongly reminiscent of the east coast, are highlighted in gold leaf as a celebration of them as taonga. They float between skies and seas, which glow and move with a gentle, evocative rhythm. “The paintings are not a moment in time,” says Best, “the energy of the light portrays different seasons and times of day.” Indeed, there is a touch of the sublime in some of her skies.

Jark Pane’s exquisite hand-crafted glass conch and scallop shells complement the paintings by matching their subtle hues. Each unique shell emerges from the wax-resist method, a lengthy and painstaking process; the faint marks of making appear as the nicks and scratches found on actual shells. Pane describes each shell as “a slow study of the ethereal, feminine form and an ode to the salty landscapes of Aotearoa”.

Reviewed by Julienne Dickey