Dunedin artist Michael O'Kane returns to Photospace Gallery with this exhibition of recent work, 'Just Playing'. Again working with the idea of digitally compositing photos of old model toys into photos of New Zealand landscape (all his own photographs), he has expanded the range of toys from his 2012 exhibition, 'On Assignment', to include model trains and military aircraft. The compositing is done skillfully - photographing the toys in the same light quality as the landscape and adding appropriate shadows, etc - but he deliberately shies off being seamlessly realistic so that once you've studied the first photo for a short time you will know what you're looking at. The photos are novel and fun on the surface, but, in some cases, such as in the poster image above, 'Stealth', gently open into a more sinister discussion of possible futures and alternative pasts.

'Just Playing' contains three bodies of new work:

• The model trains in Fellow Travellers (2016) invert scale references, allow for 1:1 scale qualities, and create unlikely combinations of the local and the exotic.
• Collateral Damage (2016-17) is a term which is often used to excuse the human casualties of military activity. These artworks are Mike’s admission of an adolescent enjoyment of models of war machines, where there is a blurred boundary between attractive and deadly; and oddly where there is still pleasure to be found.
• The panoramic railway scenes (2017) open up room for alternate visions to co-exist.

 
Michael O'Kane has a fine arts degree from Otago Polytechnic,  and has taught on their fine arts degree programme. He has had solo exhibitions in a number of galleries; for example The Eastern Southland Gallery in 2012 and 2017, The Forrester Gallery, The Suter Gallery, the Inge Doesburg Gallery, the MacAtamney Gallery, Photospace in Wellington in 2012, and the Robert Piggott Gallery in Dunedin.  A number of Mike’s works are held in public and private collections.

The show consists of three series of works that each address different issues and ideas that have arisen through digital media, whilst also utilising the technologies in such a way that reflects the positive abilities it has to be engaging and interactive in ways that cannot be achieved through traditional mediums. Ultimately, viewers will engage with works that accentuate the 'shine' of digital media, and participate in the reflection of these issues that we are confronted with each day.

'Windows and mirrors' provides two very different forms of perception, both informative and subjective. A window is a mode of observation; it provides a unique intersection between the known and unknown, the tangible and the intangible – a moment of transparency. In contrast, a mirror is a reflective surface, one of brutal honesty, yet purely subjective to the eyes and mind of the beholder.

Likewise, these series of works aim to create windows and mirrors into the sense we have of reality. They provide opportunities to observe and reflect, to analyze what one observes and how it reflects on their own perceptions. The abilities of technologies today has created a unique, entrancing and dangerous blurring of worlds, resulting in the ultimate question of what reality is today. 'Windows and mirrors' analyses the growing effect of technology on our perception of reality and aura. Traditional ideas questioned the affect of technology on aura in art; however, due to the inundation of digital media that we experience on a day-to-day basis, enhancing our interaction with this realm, the question now lies in our perception of reality.
 
“In the cinema we are removed from the world and placed in a relaxed posture, but in close proximity to others. Both alone and surrounded, and seduced by the brilliance of the figures on the screen, we ‘slide down into {our} seats as if into a bed’, and enter into a hypnotic state of arousal that is both passive and aggressive.”
                                        - Stoneley (2007)