Lonnie Hutchinson in silhouette

Lonnie Hutchinson's Can you see what I see opened this week at the gallery. The show get its title from one of the show's key works (pictured above with visiting celeb, Carmen).

The work, made from 20mm thick acrylic, seems to cross over into some new ground. We recognise Lonnie's language - the black and white, the silhouette - but here it's has become a screen reminiscent of Islamic architecture. It's a framed view into or out of a window that obscures and reveals...

... and Carmen was the perfect person to show this off.

Lonnie Hutchinson & Hand Maid in Mt Albert

Lonnie Hutchinson's work often carries a sub-text. It's only apparent here in the title - Hand Maid in Mt Albert - and perhaps in the doily like shapes of some of the cut-outs that make up this installation. It's a subtext about the place of Polynesian women in contemporary society, about 'craft' (that much disputed word), about sculpture, about applied art. In this work, the notion of sculpture is ephemeral and fragile - with implied movement and a lightness of touch.