Craft / Holding Time – Hape Kiddle. At Bungendore Wood Works Gallery until the end of February. Reviewed by MEREDITH HINCHLIFFE.

Short poems are scattered over the walls of the Bungendore Wood Works Gallery, written by Hape Kiddle, who is also the carver of lyrical objects. The words give us an insight into the artist’s thoughts.

This body of work took Kiddle six months to create and the predominant forms are small, hand-held vessels. Some are scoops, others are spoons, and others are titled “vessels”.

Their surfaces are as smooth as butter, and cry out to be held close.

Kiddle uses a variety of timbers including white beech, rosewood, Huon pine and figured blackwood. He has ebonised the surfaces of several, creating dynamic surfaces. But it is the soft and sensuous curves that give the objects their life and liveliness.

A number of carved spoons are arranged on a shelf. Their long, curved handles are perfect for stirring cakes or sauces. A couple are for left-handed humans. The spoons are similar in form – gently curving bowls, long curling handles, some with additional carving.

The exhibition includes small, curved vessels, some with rope binding. These are titled “Catching Rain”. The bases are curved so they rock gently, and their walls rise to hold the water. One vessel has been hung, as though to capture the rain, but I feel they are made to sit on a flat surface and display their elegance.

Holding Time is also a vessel form, but is long with a curved base. In red cedar, its walls are delicately ribbed or fluted, and elongated, as if to form handles. Its title is the title of the exhibition Holding Time. In the Wind is carved from Huon pine and the tail at one end forms a lip through which the water would escape.

Kiddle has scorched the surface of one vessel – Kin (Raura). This gives it a dark, matt colour.

In addition to the spoons and vessels, the exhibition includes a number of works which are purely sculptural – most based on the Möbius strip – a strip that is non-orientable surface, meaning one can’t distinguish between the clockwise from counterclockwise turns. I do not find these sculptural forms as resolved as the spoons and vessels. They are displayed on stands, and I feel they would be better on the surface of the plinth or shelf.

Kiddle has a Maori background and this comes through his work, both in the titles and the forms. His skills at carving and finishing reflect the deep feeling he has for the timber.