Hammond_MASTER Assum­ing you haven’t swanned off to sun your­self in the miser­able bloody New Zea­l­and Christ­mas weath­er, dash­ing in and out of the rain­storms and/or hail with your bottle of Banana­Boat, tow­el­ing hat, and lawn­chair, then you’re prob­ably still around Wel­ling­ton.

Assum­ing you’ve made the right decision (and are hav­ing your hols in Feb­ru­ary), then we here at the Wel­ling­tonista advise you to get your­self along to the City Gal­lery for the FREE Bill Ham­mond exhib­i­tion, Jingle Jangle Morn­ing.

And why? Because even when it’s crappy out, Bill’s paint­ing is there for you.

The trick to view­ing this exhib­i­tion is to start in the smal­ler of the two ground-floor rooms (the one to the right). It has a lot of Ham­mond’s older works, and also marks the gen­es­is of his infatu­ation with the dis­tinct­ive bird char­ac­ters that pop­u­late his paint­ings. In par­tic­u­lar, you can see paint­ings that make fairly dis­tinct ref­er­ence to Vic­tori­an hunter and col­lect­or Sir Wal­ter Buller, with whom Ham­mond seems to have developed some­thing of an obses­sion.

It’s a great col­lec­tion that the City Gal­lery have on dis­play, par­tic­u­larly the three large green pieces in the main room (The Fall of Icarus, Place­makers, and Gang­land). They’re gor­geously tex­tured, lov­ingly rendered pieces, and to me speak volumes about Ham­mond’s per­cep­tions of New Zea­l­and soci­ety.

All of the bird series uses avi­an and equine icon­o­graphy to char­ac­ter­ise pre- and post-colo­ni­al soci­et­ies. From the early paint­ing of nat­ive birds laid bare and bar­bar­ised by Vic­tori­ans, to later paint­ings in which the birds and horses (two quite dif­fer­ent treat­ments in his paint­ings) begin to merge and blend, you can wit­ness Ham­mond’s gradu­al move­ment in thought as his art devel­ops. By the time you reach the upstairs gal­lery, his per­cep­tions have shif­ted markedly, new types of icons are appear­ing, and his skill with the brush has lif­ted to an incred­ible degree.

It’s a great exhib­i­tion, and well worth the trip from your couch-with-book/TV into the city, whatever the weath­er.