John Hurrell – 30 July, 2025

In this downtown show of coloured photographs and freestanding sculptures we find an assortment of typically comical Steve Carr artworks similar to those of much earlier exhibitions, in the vein of say, much LA art but unusual in Aotearoa New Zealand: a sort of ‘yuk yuk’, drunken neighbour’s elbow in your ribs sensibility. They are very whimsical, in a daffy sense.

The test for Carr and his enthusiasts is whether his offerings here are limited to one fleeting guffaw only, or if they can sustain repeated amusing encounters? Are there many diverse interpretative levels built into these images so they stick in your ruminating mind? (If you are inclined to speculate about purpose.)

For example, there are a number of images of Carr holding up small bushes. In How to Disappear he hides his head and torso so that each bush looks like it has denim-clad legs and can walk around. There seems to be no reason why Carr wants to hide, only that he wants to be seen holding these leafy plants up to serve as obscuring screens.

Perhaps he is thinking about Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, when the murderous villain meets his comeuppance at hands of Malcolm and Macduff whose emerging soldiers carry small trees in front to hide their advance. (Thus confirming the witches’ prophesy of Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane.)

In another suite of related images, Carr stands on a rock (ostensibly positioning for higher visibility) only to undermine its efficacy by releasing canisters of churning dense white smoke that again only exposes his legs. He jokingly becomes a human chimney.

In this series he presents smoke as an outdoor sculpture that with his body intervenes in the landscape. He tries out different colours beside white, to see their impact. Those ‘artificial’ bright hues add a playful decorative element and are not menacing like white, which usually has destructive ‘realistic’ overtones linked to fire.

Another series plays with multiple selves, showing many ‘Carrs’ wearing high-viz vests hiding behind trees in a forest, seemingly as a comment on the complexity of human personalities and how they are perceived.

This is a lovely show of hooting one-liners that sometimes draw out more than what you at first expect.

John Hurrell

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