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.