Not quite dead yet.

The highlight is two new paintings by Aaron and Hannah Beehre. The backgrounds are made up of intricate tessellations of what seem to be decorative paper (most of which have unique sub-patterns of their own). However, in places these micro-patterns are torn and run, making me think at least some of them are themselves hand painted. These shapes sit above the ground, with small golden channels running between them. This non-super-flat surface marks the departure from their earlier paintings and lends a hands-on crafted feel. The variety and combinations of the patterns are amazing, creating an almost liquid wallpaper that forces your eye to follow its ever changing paths. Doubtless, the two unashamedly decorative artists are making a quiet joke at the idea of painting as expensive wallpaper. Graphic elements cut across the ground, breaking it up and integrating the illustrative elements: an elephant, zebra, butterflies, a satellite and a military tank. The variety of imagery reads differently from their last show of paintings, where the ubiquitous birds forced a nationalistic and environmental reading. Such diverse and iconic images could be a comment on the military west and environment, but I feel it is more a survey of the current cultural landscape, with a slightly retro feel. These are all things we remember fondly from childhood, perhaps even because they were on our bedroom wallpaper. Reproduction does not do these intricate paintings justice.

Andre Hemer's computer designed paintings provide a starker contrast to the comparatively human Beehre paintings. Hemer's paintings are a more critical and conceptual (although still celebratory) investigation of the history and interaction of painting and design. An older Geoff Thornley painting with recessed and awkwardly slightly-not-perfectly-positioned geometric shapes mirrors Hemer's formal concerns, particularly for the edges of the canvas. Like Hemer, Matthew Dowman's large gestural canvas in pastel colours undermines the epic Ab-ex gesture, both by choice of colours, repetition of almost mundane strokes and the ugly, dry quality of the paint.

Paint is a title better suited to the remaining artists, whose work is driven more by materials. Bill Riley presents a few monochrome canvases composed of his trademark poured and then sliced up and re-stuck down acrylic paint. These are entirely different from but inevitably remind one of Mondrian and Diebenkorn.

Noel Ivanoff pokes fun at Donald Judd with his "Pallet (the type you normally stack things on, not an artist's palette) Painting" This is a square of board painted white in noticeable horizontal brush strokes stuck onto a found pallet.

Paint demonstrates how alive and utilised the medium is.

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Andre Hemer images: http://www.andrehemer.com

Bill Riley: http://www.artbash.co.nz/display.asp?thread_number=251

Pictures from events associated with this article: