Mair Gallery, 13th–31st January 2009

Interruption to Transmission features the work of four artists whose iconography seems to deliberately conceal as much as it seeks to reveal. The presence of the personal marks or gestures of the artist on the picture plane may sometimes act as both a formalist or expressionist language that invites, but ultimately it also serves to deliberately frustrates the reading or interpretation of this visual language as fact, or even as counterfeit signs and symbols. Rather, communication is implied through ephemeral and modulating narratives that blur boundaries between order and intuition. Iain Cheesman was a finalist in the 2007 COCA Anthony Harper Award and has recently completed postgraduate study at the Elam School of Fine Arts.

Ina Johann has exhibited extensively in New Zealand and German. She graduated with an MFA from Johannes-Gutenberg University Mainz/Germany and was the recipient of the COCA Guthrey Travel Award in 2005.

Hamish Pettengell lives in Rotorua and graduated from the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 2001. He has exhibited in solo exhibitions at COCA and a group show at the Govett-Brewster Gallery.

Robert West works in a range of materials and media in works that bring together abstract signs and figurative motifs. He completed a Master of Fine Arts in printmaking at Camberwell College of Art and Design in London in 1992.