Dialogue presents work by Jude Rae and (for the first time in New Zealand) Zeljko Markov. Dialogue places Rae's paintings alongside, or in conjunction with Markov's shelves, to invite conversation around similarity and difference.
That discussion could take many forms. Aesthetically for example, the beautifully measured rhythms of their front gallery installation generate relationships of surprising breadth. Witness 'Still Life with Shelf'. A painting of water in a glass half full, all but dissolves in the soft porous strokes of its making. Close-by, the hard edges of planed maple line the wall with terrific strength. Line and form is gently pushed towards us, then pulled away with equal grace. Edges appear both soft and hard, as sensations of illusion and the actual, deftly play out before us. The conjunction here, between the concrete and the speculative, between the real space of sculpture and the imagined space of painting, is tellingly achieved.
Elsewhere in the exhibition, the notion of dialogue is shaped slightly differently. Markov's Untitled Shelf no.91 is a singular presence. It stands between wall and floor - a twisting rhythm of spaces open, then enclosed. In heavy gauge of fibreboard it feels raw and grounded.
Opposite, the conversation is different. Light bleeds into the ends of four white pre-cast resin blocks - shelf lengths between a finer grade of mdf lightly rubbed with beeswax. Transparency is opposed to density, and movement suggested within stasis. Markov's achievement is immaculate and controlled.
In the back gallery, Rae presents seven recent still lifes - all the same size and with the same vocabulary of objects. Dialogue shifts again, revolving now around a deliberately restricted lexicon of placement, composition and variations within the relationship of figure and ground.
Rae's painting is a finely controlled series of conversations between objects; around their edges, overlay, shadows, reflections and the spaces between, 
and between these objects and their description via colour, tone and painted ground. In other words, there is an exquisite and on-going balancing of depiction in Rae's work, between what is painted and how it is painted. These seven intrinsically related canvases (re)focus dialogue. Variations to do with the exposure of underpainting, the notion of foreground support, and the different scumbling of brushstroke become the order of the day. And that is the joy of these paintings.
Selected Works
Still Life 229 (I)
Still Life 229 (II)
Still Life 229 (III)
Still Life 235
Front Gallery:
1. Untitled Shelves no. 89 fibreboard & pre-cast resin 2008
2. Still Life 229 (I - III) oil on canvas 2008
3. Still Life with Shelf mixed media 2008
4. Untitled Shelf no.91 fibreboard 2008
Back Gallery:
5. Still Life 210 oil on canvas 2007
6. Still Life 213 oil on canvas 2007
7. Still Life 211 oil on canvas 2007
8. Still Life 214 oil on canvas 2007
9. Still Life 212 oil on canvas 2007
10. Still Life 236 oil on canvas 2008
11. Still Life 235 oil on canvas 2008
The suite of related canvases in the back gallery measure 460 x 510mm ea.
