Samantha Matthews
‘A Taste of New Zealand’ Cadbury Factory, Dunedin
This work is part of an ongoing project documenting the former Cadbury factory in Dunedin. My photographic investigation of the site came during a unique time in its 150-year history – decommission. As I continue to refine the series this image has become an anchor for a sense of loss and nostalgia, ‘A Taste of New Zealand’ that no longer exists.
Ali Hale Tilley
2020: Papatūānuku – mother earth – awoke
A wild Kurukulla diva dances on a person who symbolises modern privilege and egoic thinking. The landscape inside Papatūānuku’s body references an idealistic Aotearoa. While surrounding oceans brim with indigenous species, currently threatened by environmental degradation. Rather than viewing 2020 as a victim of ‘cancel culture’, this image invites us to support positive social and environmental changes.
Esther Rose
Possibilities
As my art has progressed over 50 years, I have learnt that the paper runs the story and the paint brings it to life.
Possibilities is about the pathways, windows and doors that lead to people’s different experiences and stories. Possibilities shows these stories from the people I’ve meet through my travels. Through light and darkness.
Timon Maxey
Kawarau River
Timon Maxey produces abstract landscapes and prints from his Whanganui studio. He is represented by The International Art centre, Auckland. His work has been shown in many New Zealand galleries, in London and Dubai. Timon has recently moved with his family from Wellington. His art is inspired by a fascination with beautiful New Zealand landscapes, maps and rivers.
Lily Claypole
My Lo
“I looked and looked at her, and I knew, as clearly as I know that I will die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth. She was only the dead-leaf echo of the nymphet from long ago – but I loved her, this Lolita” -Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Karen Workman
Fractionated
This Rainbow is not exempt from the ‘cosmic shift’ we are all experiencing right now, and like us, is feeling ‘fractionated’
Jillian Karl
The Joining DNA Files 2021 I ii (Diptyth)
The Joining is a foundational piece within the “DNA Files”; a suite of work that is an extensive inquiry into my ancestry. The Joining honours Emma de Vetereponte and John de Chesholme, whose marriage around the time of William the Conqueror merged two noble families. Delving into our heritage gives grounding and a sense of belonging to the now.
Ivan Vostinar
She’ll Be Right
This work sheds light on the outrageous wealth inequality in New Zealand. According to the 2017-18 Household Economic Survey, the wealthiest 10% have 59% of all the country’s wealth and assets, the next 40% have 39%, and the bottom 50% have just 2%. This inequality has negative social consequences and it shatters the notion of ‘fair go’ in our country.
Lesa Hepburn
Ghost net/Jaring hantu
Notions of being stranded recur in Hepburn’s work. The connectivity of strands in paper, string, and weaving contrast with the notion of being stranded, alone and disconnected. Other strandings become apparent in a quiet estuary where she found washed ashore many pieces of synthetic rope and nets from tiny fragments up to a half tonne remnant of a ghost net.
James Knight
White Swan
The white swan is a symbol of individuality and acceptance of people with mental health in New Zealand and worldwide.
Brydee Rood
Everything Rises
Everything Rises responds to the night skies, rising tides, fire and climate emergency. 38 participants carried a glowing line of solar-lights; a navigation of the incoming tide, walked into the sea towards the pull of a rising Ōturu. Connecting the intertidal walk with dialogues of Maramataka, Puanga and Matariki seven intersecting burning clips were filmed in my garden, at dusk as Ōturu arose; referencing the seven key Matariki stars.
Emma Cunningham
Sing a Song of Sixpence.
Our love of money is what is killing us.
We worship it like a god.
Our endless consumption of stuff is destroying the earth.
We are dependent on a corrupt financial system that feeds on greed, and greed is leading us to extinction.
We need to stop our idolization of money, let nature be our idol, and end the greed.
Andrew Cameron
Main Bearing
‘Main Bearing’ is an assemblage of repurposed and lightly modified materials; matai deck planks, aluminum sheet, naturally oxidized copper pipe, stainless-steel pins, domed inspection plate, and cast-iron 1920’s era stationary engine ‘main bearing’ assembly. Adjustment shims have been ‘exploded’ out of their original location and replaced with perspex sheet.
Jenn Dickie
Time Lines
I am strongly drawn to an area of coastline north of Whanganui. This work reflects my ongoing fascination with the never ending movements of the elements, created where the sea meets the land. The geological processes and forces acting within this elemental coastal environment have become a focus for my work.
Nicholas Toyne
Leave Me Out With the Waste
In contemporary throwaway culture it can be easy to lose sight of the value of things; both people and objects. Smartphones have become as disposable as everyday waste, yet the significance we place on them and the part they play in our identity seems disproportionate to almost all other aspects of personal wellbeing. We mustn’t lose sight of what matters.
Michael Russo
Totara Trekka
A year of statistical fascination. Eyes were glued to peaks and troughs of case numbers and each nation’s progress. The Trekka, manufacturer in New Zealand in the 1960s and 70s, was New Zealand’s problem solving approach to the peaks and troughs of international restrictions. Made from totara posts salvaged from the Whanganui River.
Wigs Arathoon
Autumn Almanac
Everyday on my solitary lockdown walk I found a stone, took it home and painted it. Each stone was dated and recorded the number of people in the Whanganui DHB with covid and the New Zealand death toll. Randomly other points of personal, national or international significance were included. Handle the stones. Feel the diary. Remember.
Fiona McGowan
Breath Of Trees
Step lightly on the forest path at Tarapuruhi
Be still
Listen, look, breathe deeply
Know self as part of the natural cycle of Nature
Timeless
Abundant
Intricate
Regenerating
Healing
The lid: The Kauri oozes when damaged but a falling branch separates from the trunk without bleeding sap.
An urn referencing nature, separation and healing.
Zenica and Frederica Mann
Birth of a Mother
This piece is the result of a collaboration with my daughter. It’s an exploration of our new shared life together and a reflection of how we have created each other. Our medium lends itself kindly to find balance between free and intentional, process and play, sacred and everyday; only to then discover that these things have become the other.
Lee Su’a
Kōanga
Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua
As man disappears from sight, the land remains.
… and on the first day of spring in 2020, Papatūānuku beckoned…. follow the tikanga of our ancestors and tread lightly as these are the ways of the tangata whenua.
Wendy-ann Molijn
Ara
An exploration of colour to capture the essence of this beautiful girl and express the moment.
Andrea du Chatenier
Word Stack (Apokatastasis)
This is part of a series of word stacks using words or definitions associated with “Earth” and its place in the Universe. In Ancient Greek, the idea of apokatastasis was derived from the ancient concept of cosmic cycles, which involves the notion of celestial bodies – the stars and planets – returning to their original position.
Renata Szarvas
…and counting…
There is a new common thread among all nations that ties us together.
Counting.
Counting the cases, counting the dead.
We are learning about vulnerability.
Kay Benseman
All the Machinery of Existence
“Replacing pockets, the first handbags (‘reticules’ or ‘indispensibles’) in Europe were small and decorative. Catherine Wilmot described these new accessories in 1801 as “a species of little workbag worn by the ladies, containing snuff-boxes, billet-doux, purses, handkerchiefs, fans, prayer-books, bon-bons, visiting tickets, and all the machinery of existence”. In emptying ones handbag and photographing its contents, a story is told of the owner and the world she carries on her shoulder.”
MB Stoneman
Dragon Arum
Described as possessing
an exotic vascular form
bulbous, with erect
palmate leaves
borne on petioles and sheaths
large deep purple
aroid inflorescence
a shaft of such in-your-face
velvet phallic beauty
It’s no wonder
flies are strongly attracted
by the rotting
flesh smell emitted
from its ornamental
lush frilled margins
Alice McDonald
Impasse
The weight of an imbalance surrounds completely. Tension brews. Lack of mutual vulnerability arms us with negation. The truth, checkmate.
Jacqueline Broughton
Tūpuna
Staring back at us
Mokopuna gaze
Smiling eyes, pūkana!
Korowai , golden hues
Wrapped in waiata
Woven with ruruku
Worn feet, rooted to whenua
Seeds sown from karanga
Papakāinga calling
Papakāinga calling
Pauline Allomes
Infinite Beauty
Micography quote By John Ruskin (1819 – 1900)
“Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty.”
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, as well as an art patron, draughtsman, water colourist, philosopher, prominent social thinker and philanthropist.
Catherine Macdonald
He was keeping watch
We can deploy our guard dogs to keep watch
train them as best we can
but there are some things
they just never see coming.
Frances Stachl
Horoi ō ringaringa
In te reo Māori the phrase ‘horoi ō ringaringa’ has different connotations to the English language ‘wash your hands’. Removed from the context of a western biblical or literary history it becomes about a simple shared cleansing ritual performed to keep a community safe.
Kelly Collins
An Imaginary World?
Plastic pollution is everywhere.
Our oceans, our rivers, our lakes have never been as polluted before. This artwork illustrates what the near future could look like if there is no positive change made. An “Imaginary” World soon could become our reality. We need to stand together as one and help protect New Zealand oceans from Plastic pollution.
Rita Dibert
In Memorium 2020
To put a name to grief:
Mike Shanahan, 1955-2020 A wonderful furniture maker and designer, the brother of one of my best friends. He hosted me in Paris.
Clark Shanahan 1928-2020 A lawyer, born an Iowa farm boy, famous for probono and father of one of my best friends. Lovely man.
Stephen Scott McMath 1948-2021 A good friend at Art School and a marvelous artist. What a sense of dry humour.
Joseph J Harris 1926-2020 The Father-in-Law of one of my best students. Know for his lovely ways.
Jutta Humpfer.
‘A Glimpse into my Garden’
I experiment with unwanted, discharged and often ripped fabrics. I explore how to create shapes, colours and lines with these in a similar way as I would use paint or pencils. I am especially drawn to semi-transparent fabrics that I partly fold, stretch and arrange on top of each other so they blend into new shapes and colours.
Tom Turner
Chasing Rabbits – episode 33
Through the lens of my lived experience of lockdown, this work explores an unusual juxtaposition of making sourdough and journaling as my daily ritual to alleviate an uneasy sense of waiting for something sinister to arrive. It was informed by David Lynch’s Rabbits series, identifying with the repetition, monotony and purgatory Lynch employs to manifest atmospheres of mystery and horror.
Wendy Watson
On the Margins: Late Summer
Marginal land is defined as of little use to agriculture or industry; marginalised people might feel likewise yet on the margins there is both beauty and nourishment. In combining found materials and the delicacy of silk the ephemeral nature and beauty of the margins is revealed. Walking Whanganui riverbank margins daily, Wendy contemplates different viewpoints about waste, usefulness and beauty.
Lysha Brennan
Portrait of a Huia Bird mother and child
Like jewels plucked from a royal crown, huia feathers were given as tokens of friendship and respect. In a culture without money, tribes occupying the huia country of the North Island sent the feathers as gifts, or traded them with others.
The huia bird is a metaphor, representing our colonialist past where I ask us to look back to contemplate our future.
Carmen Simmonds
Balanced
It is becoming more and more prevalent how precariously balanced our life is, within our societies and ecosystems. Covid 19 has shown us this. Using glass made with threads and bound by threads, this work has been arranged to reflect a delicate ‘balance,’ with ability to be re-arranged, as in our societies, using mindfulness and our hand.
Amanda Burgess
Rabbit Dream
“Rabbit Dream” is about remembering.
It is one in a series of oil paintings exploring dreams before they elusively disappear.
Who is the dreamer who dreams the dream? There is a type of dream, called a lucid dream, in which you know that you are dreaming.
I am interested in finding ways to express atmospheres felt in the unseen world.
Mayumi Sherburn
in the midst of…
Layers of carefully constructed paper and subtly coloured palette resonate with distant memories or feelings left behind. Stitches are used as a mark-making tool and connect those things together.
Melissa Crawford
Identity
While thinking we are being true to ourselves, our identity is being influenced by society and all that is happening within and around our lives.
After death our identities evolve, change or diminish with time.
Are we just mushrooms devouring decay or are we evolving with the changes?
Diane Harries
Experiencing Stitch, 2021
How do I get my annual cultural “fix” if I can’t travel in this Covid world? I can surf the internet and explore foreign crafts, but how can I make it experiential? I started watching embroidery tutorials on YouTube, then, gathering needle and threads, I learned to do the stitches demonstrated. My strategy worked and I became transported by my discoveries and the joy of accomplishment. Please touch and look through the books. Thanks for taking care.
Monique Taylor
Tell me no secrets, tell me some lies
These deconstructed tea cups are the first of a series of work exploring barriers in communication. They are a metaphor for social etiquette and conversation. It’s a visual representation of what we “bring to the table”. It is about what we hold back in a conversation as a means to protect ourselves or those we are talking too.
Kate Regan
Intimacy of Silence
This image represents a form of self-reflection. A timeless moment, preserved with a mere click of my camera.
A connection to intimacy in which people yearn for. Sitting in a naturally thoughtful position, surrounded by her mother’s trinkets, possessing a beautiful unspoken significance. This photograph evokes strong emotions of nostalgia and projects the serene silence of a breath being held.
