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Visual arts
By Douglas Crane | July 28, 2008
Te Papa presents one of New Zealand’s most significant artists Rita Angus which opened on 5 July.
If you like modernism and New Zealand’s take on it then this show is for you, with almost 200 of Angus’ works ranging from her most iconic ones to sketchbooks, studies and a number of unfinished works. More
By Douglas Crane | July 14, 2008
Gina Jones opened at Page Blackie on 24 June, with a body of work displaying a strong architectural and fine arts feel utilising abstractionism as its base. This invariably lends itself to reflection or in Jones’ words contemplation – a reflection that brings a sense of tranquility within some. More
By Douglas Crane | July 7, 2008
In May five Massey University students curated the painting exhibition ‘Don’t be a Dick’ at the Engine Room, which also included photography, video installation and sculpture. Apparently painting in a university context, anyway, now includes other media. Which makes this exhibition more engaging. More
By Douglas Crane | May 26, 2008
The Jim Barr and Mary Barr Collection, part of City Gallery’s New Zealand programme for the International Arts Festival, opened on 23 February. The exhibition allows mere mortals an opportunity to view an extensive and unique private collection of work by both local and international artists. The collection raises the interesting issue of collecting visual art. Who should we be collecting? More
By Douglas Crane | May 19, 2008
Batteries Not Included
Mary Newton Gallery
30 April - 24 May
Batteries Not Included is an interesting mixture of mixed media, graphite and ink on vintage paper, through to photographic prints at a show titled Private Park featuring Emily Bullock, Mary Macpherson, Jim Wheeler, Joanna Langford, Andy Irving and Andrea du Chatenier. More
By Douglas Crane | May 12, 2008
A group show titled I like Sex and I’m a Girl opened on 2 May at the DAF 106 Gallery. Exhibition titles can be a little deceiving at times and on this occasion this is the case with the title of the show relating to a small ceramic piece by Mica Still that is hand painted with these words, which has been placed in the front window for display. More
By Douglas Crane | May 5, 2008
The show Future Garden a collaborative effort by Julian Bishop and Catherine Bagnall, that opened on 29 March, is currently being held at the Suite Gallery.
The concept for the future garden appears to have developed as a response to Bishop and Bagnall moving into a their new house and primarily focus’s on the living room and garden. Without this understanding dialoguing with this exhibition takes a little while to occur as the various works at first fail to have any association and one could also be forgiven for thinking that more than two artists’ are present! More
By Douglas Crane | April 28, 2008
Peter Robinson’s exhibition at the Peter McLeavey Gallery is a sculptural piece made up of an everyday material, white polystyrene, that’s been crafted into a form that at first may look like a giant alien from a Doctor Who episode, but with the aid of a book in the next room and the help of the those in the gallery, becomes unpacked, and the conversation becomes more focussed. More
By Douglas Crane | April 7, 2008
Hamilton visual artist Mark Curtis is displaying his new paintings at the Tamarillo Gallery from 28 March, in an exhibition titled Hotel Suite. More
By Douglas Crane | March 24, 2008
It’s All About Whanau / Ex Niholi Sui Et Subjecti, Matthew Couper’s recent exhibition at the Janne Land Gallery, is an autobiographical series covering his recent art residencies.
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By Douglas Crane | March 17, 2008
“I don’t go to openings only to launches.”
These were the words Peter Cush, a New Zealand novelist, playwright and journalist, spoke to me on opening night at Photospace on Courtney Place where photographer Andrew Ross’s latest exhibition of photographs was presented to the public under the theme Special Places. In fact the exhibition also coincided with the launch of Ross’s book Fiat Lux - 51 Photographs by Andrew Ross, which would explain why there was a plethora of writers and editors at opening night. The works are in Ross’s trademark black and white style and document the recent and distant pasts of Wellington’s landscape (both exterior and interior), a subject Ross has been covering since the 1990s. More
By Salient | February 25, 2008
Adam Art Gallery is an art gallery situated in the middle of the university. When you’re feeling bored between lectures and feel like looking at something pretty, go pay them a visit. They’re up by the Student Union Building – just turn left before the National Bank/Vic Books entrance. It’s FREE!
Adam Art Gallery is currently running the exhibition Opposites Attract, in conjunction with the International Arts Festival. This exhibition features three separate displays. More
By Nick Archer | October 15, 2007
In the introduction to Visual Arts in the Orientation Issue of Salient earlier this year (to borrow a line from the classic anti-media film Network), I said that of each Thursday night, “as the Salient deadline approaches I will blow my brains out and leave a red smear all over this page. Red with oils, pastels, ink, and hopefully some passion.” More
By Nick Archer | October 8, 2007
Last Tuesday night, feeling burnt out from a long year (with writers block to boot), I wandered up the stairs at Motel bar to meet up with Sandy Rodgers, an up and coming local contemporary artist specialising in an interpretation of colonial era maps. More
By Nick Archer | October 1, 2007
Primary Products is the latest exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery with the purpose to help us reconnect to the fact that we are all consumers of timber. We are all aware of our agriculture industry but equally important to the history of New Zealand is forestry. Primary Products has key works from five New Zealand artists whose own interpretations of this country’s forestry industry overlap in several areas encompassing beauty, form, utilisation and spiritual meaning.
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By Nick Archer | September 24, 2007
Recently after a long production night at Salient (and I mean late), I was feeling jaded from helping compile the VUWSA election handout and crawled along to Hamish McKay gallery feeling sick as a dog. Afterwards I came out feeling energised; the reason for my change in energy levels came from sitting down for a chat with Julian Daspher who was exhibiting with Don Driver. More
By KarolinaK | September 21, 2007
Since last July the New Zealand Portrait Gallery and the New Zealand Centre for Photography have found a home at Shed 11 on Wellington’s Waterfront. The first show included two exhibitions. The Portrait Gallery presented “Portraits of Artists” from Otago’s Hocken Collection. Also on display was the Centre for Photography’s exhibition “Collecting Photographers”. More
By Nick Archer | September 17, 2007
The few of us up here at Vic who are old enough to have grown up in the ‘80s, long before those new fangled iPods, used to make up mix tapes to reflect the angst we were feeling. The soundtrack of our lives, we would sit by the radio and flick a C90 cassette tape into the tape deck (remember those, anyone?) and press the chunky record and play button down and listen to the high pitch whistle as the tape wound round. And no, the high pitch whistle was not just the sound of the tape deck mechanism creaking along, but the sound coming from the lungs of arena rockers… More
By Nick Archer | September 17, 2007
I have seen many movies where bathtubs are prominent, from Minority Report, where Tom Cruise has creepy nanobots pull his eyelids open, to What Lies Beneath, where Michelle Pfeiffer is paralysed with a drug during a rare creepy moment involving Harrison Ford, and of course an old favourite of mine, the great B-Grade horror classic Rattlers where rattlesnakes sneak into a bathtub and kill… More
By Lisa Lawton | September 10, 2007
An exhibition of the artworks of Simon Morse
Well-known for his low-brow, pin-up girly/cutesy horror meets pop art pieces, as well as his comic book works, the name Simon Morse may ring a few bells. Mr Morse has a CV that reads off like a comic-nerd’s wet dream – Dark Horse Comics, Chopper Chick, Toolbox, Verotik (Glen Danzig’s creepy/sexy comics) and has designed for companies like Hell pizza, Illicit Clothing and bands such as Horror Story, Miniut and Fat Freddy’s Drop. Friday August 31 saw the opening of his latest exhibition at ALC Headquarters, a clothing store/tattoo shop on Cuba St. More
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