Saskia Leek’s small-scale paintings come to life slowly: built in layers, paused and restarted, gradually settling into resolution. Comfortably unheroic and awkward, they take a quietly whimsical approach. Ōtautahi Christchurch-born, Ōtepoti Dunedin-based Saskia sometimes takes cues from things overlooked, including discarded op-shop paintings, and also lightly echoes art history, as seen in the cubist- inspired modernist schemes of these works. Untitled, with its slightly kitschy 1950s bathroom palette, perhaps pays tribute to earlier, amateur painters and eras. Both works are too wayward to be high minded, and too sensitively formed to be naïve.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- )