They Were Folly And Fun:

Seraphine Pick, at the Christchurch Art Gallery, 23 July--22 November.

If you go to see the Seraphine Pick show, you may as well leave once you've seen the first room. It goes downhill from there. There are still some good works but as a body they fail to live up to the of the early paintings. Pick follows the pattern of a 60's rocker, begining tight and raw and finishing excessive and self-indulgent. It is a pity, because Pick is obviously good at painting. Sadly, after the first room, her talent never really shows through for more that a few brief flashes to remind you that Pick is still very good when it all clicks.

The early paintings, mostly dating from the Olivia Spencer Residency, are predominantly white, with faint lines passing through and across a scratchy field of off-white. They, along with the tottering bathtubs and colanders, are the stars of the show.

But after a while, it seems like Pick is unable to handle her themes effectively. She works on a smaller scale, but it looks like she is over reaching. Compositions much simpler than the layered ghostly lines of the white paintings seem messy and ungainly. Figures become stiff and awkward, and where before Pick's work recalled Bill Hammond's deep layered canvases, it now looks like she has seen that Hammond looked at Hieronymus Bosch and decided to do a Bosch. But in the rush to paint meaning she forgets to paint paintings, and the ideas get in the way.

The curation is not kind to her. Too much is shown. The wall of --- and I don't really know what to call it; I suppose preparatory works --- hung all atop one another is an awful idea. I don't particularly care how Pick works, and if the rest of the paintings need a cloud of explanations, they aren't very good paintings. There are perhaps two or three works among that bank that are worthwhile, but the rest really aren't adding value. A photograph of a mushroom cloud from Wikipedia doesn't gain anything by being painted. Why not just print it off and frame that? It wouldn't tell us anything less, and it would be much cheaper in terms of materials.

However, it would not be fair to say that everything after that first doorway is crap. The portraits are good, when Pick manages to go lightly and delicately. (I do wish Pick would give titles to more of her works; all I can say is that I liked the painting of the girl with headphones, Untitled.)

As you walk around the exhibition you can hear et al's installation through the walls. Comparisons are always unfair, but you can't help feeling that Pick could be doing stuff just as impressive as et al --- for she clearly has the talent --- were it not for her tendency to be distracted by shiny things. Still, that first room like a Young Marble Giants track is worth the rest, and you really should go see this show.