Lot 81: Michael Hight Clyde (17-X-00) oil on canvas 1105 x 2500In Clyde, Michael Hight establishes a duality of regional location and universal metaphor. There are conflicts between order and chaos. He uses the imagery of beehives to convey the ideas of

Michael Hight Clyde (17-X-00) oil on canvas 1105 x 2500In Clyde, Michael Hight establishes a duality of regional location and universal metaphor. There are conflicts between order and chaos. He uses the imagery of beehives to convey the ideas of spiritual and physical transformation. Central Otago becomes a "celebration of New Zealand, its strangeness and its emptiness and the curious interaction between humans and the landscape ... stacks of beehives, painted exactly and realistically ... Landscape and hives are linked by rocks"."Light floods" the foreground the creates shadows that establish a particular atmosphere at the same time as "the fierce sharpness" of the painting acts as a "portal to this special place captured by the artist's skill and observation"T.J. McNamara, Abstracts that comment on life, NZ Herald, July 22 2002.