Art Beat with Rosalie Crawford

Today I visited Lightwave Gallery in Totara St. What I was expecting is vastly different from what I experienced. Two new exhibitions have opened, one featuring the work of local professional painter Nick Eggleston, and the other a step into a 1950s set that has evolved from the previous Steampunk Show, but following the story of Nick's character RayGun Rex.

Nick, who I regard as one of the Bay of Plenty's most fascinating water colour artists, has a wonderfully quirky sense of humour which leads him to surprise us with his tattooed dogs, teddy bears with horns and a Thunderbird landing over the Mount. Each painting, painstakingly detailed, tells a story – and it's no surprise Nick's watercolour dogs resulted in a sellout exhibition in Dunedin's The Artist's Room Gallery.

The early years of Dr Nikolai Eaglestone, AKA ‘RayGun Rex' exhibition is an absorbing and evolving work in progress which includes Ken Wright's paintings, photographs, stage sets, shrunken aliens and characters – all played by Bay of Plenty people.

'This is a way cooler development on steam punk,” says gallery owner Ken Wright. 'This has developed into a project that will consume us for the next year. I really want it to be at the level of an exhibit you'd see at Te Papa.”

It's highly interactive, with people including five-year-old Mitchell Buckley, from Te Akau ki Primary School, and 11-year-old Jesse Wright, from Omokoroa No 1 School, going home to create their own steam punk guns. They've now been included as characters in this story about a young boy's fascination with rockets and aliens.

I immersed myself for an hour, following the retro futuristic twists of the story, all the time wondering if I was actually inside Ken Wright's mind; and if I would be swallowed into this story further, becoming a forgotten Russian villain, called Rosary B'ads, brandishing a steam punk rocket and dueling it out with Lippy Galore. Hope so.

The exhibition opened to the public on Saturday, December 14. Gold coin donations are appreciated. However, children and aliens are free. The Lightwave Gallery is open Tuesdays-Sunday, 10am-4pm.

(Rosalie Liddle Crawford, ATCL (Music Teaching), has exhibited and sold paintings, and been involved in arts promotion and festivals, managing galleries, and playing piano and violin in orchestras, theatres, musical shows and solo performances. She is a consultant for www.topshelfdesign.com and is a keen amateur photographer).

Lightwave Gallery owner Ken Wright as Kenny Zulu, defending the Mk3 Tele-Krono Transportator and entrance to the Dark Side of the Mount.