What do you do with the multiple drafts from your PhD thesis? Turn it into yarn and spin it! Creating something artful from this material was part of a process that helped sustain me during the 6 years it took to complete a PhD.
When I was writing my thesis and needed a break I would often go and create a piece of art. It was a shift from the mind to the body which I discovered fostered a reflective process as well as a creative one. The hands-on, physical aspect of creating a piece of art often gave me bit of space in my head to unpack my research ideas.
The exhibition highlights the struggles as well as some of the triumphs of my research journey. It also celebrates the end of this research project.
A frustrated eye, a contemplative smile, a disagreeing nose. I like to study faces, and how those around us share their moods. How their faces give them away. Expressive Features; The Nose Knows is a passionate and quirky multi-media enquiry into the capturing of facial features, and the contours, expressions, and moods behind them. I'll be exhibiting pen and ink portraiture, ceramic pot sculpture, and much more.
My work will be available for purchase throughout the exhibition, from small and wallet-friendly greeting cards to one-of-a-kind ceramic pots. I will also be doing on-the-spot portraits and am open to commissions.
All ages are welcome to the opening night of Expressive Features.
Place.meant, what is a place meant for? And how do we define that meaning?
Using the strongly evocative material of barrier mesh, with its meaning of demarcating zones of safety and non-safety, I have been exploring the “demolish and build”, cycle of the urban and suburban landscape in iconic sculptural forms. This is a constant: the demolishing and constructing affects the house-scape, the work-scape, the people-scape, and a question is how central are we humans to this, or has it taken over?
Opening night Monday 23rd 7.30pm - 9.30pm. Karanga starts at 7.30pm. All welcome.
Kia ora. My exhibition explores how Wellington would look if Te Reo was our only language. I imagine an alternate future where Te Reo is normalised, our signage is in Te Reo, and English/Reo Pākēhā although welcome is no longer our default.
My inspiration comes from visiting Quebec, where French is the default language for every day life, thanks to Bill 101 passed in 1977. Bill 101 was not without controversy, but today about 95% of Quebec residents speak French. Without trying, I picked up words and context in French, simply by being surrounded by it.
I wish to imagine Wellington in the same light, as if Te Reo was our default language. The colonial buildings still remain, the shops are the same, but Te Reo is now a first-class citizen and not simply a subtitle for government departments.
I hope you find this exhibition inspiring, challenging and an exciting view into an alternative present.
This shows theme is destruction and recreation, representing that through destruction comes loss, grief, pain and with recreation we can start from scratch creating a world built from our truth, reborn from a place of love.
Each artists will create a image; photo, painting, multimedia image with a beat/piece of music that accompanies the image.
People will be asked to enter the exhibition with their phones, connect to a soundcloud link to listen to the music through their own personal devices, to listen and connect within their own space.
I have included a mixture of feminine and masculine with equal balance of wahine and tane.
Te Kahureremoa Tiopira, Preehya Patel, Maxie Eve, Andria Pablo Sanchez, Luke Whitten, Djauni Mantey-Worrall, Kauri Hawkins, Will Moore.
CLAY IN DAILY LIFE - Elevating the domestic to ritual
Objects from the artist’s hands to yours.
Simple beauty for a world awash in waste.
Galit Maxwell has been sitting down at a potter’s wheel on and off for twenty years, but right now she can’t seem to stop.
Everyday we touch and use objects, when they are made by hand from natural resources its elevates our daily tasks to ritual. People even say that their coffee tastes much better when you drink it from handmade mug.
Our domestic objects should be beautiful, we should cherish them. We live in a world where everything is mass-produced or plastic and so many objects are disposable. Not only are we clogging our oceans with plastic we have lost touch with the simple pleasure of raising a beautiful vessel to our lips or holding something that has been crafted with care by someone else’s hands.
Instagram@galitmaxwell
FB Galit Maxwell Art
Big teeth! A ridiculous pompadour! Devious eyes and full lips! The Big Teeth x Petals exhibition showcases peculiar character designs presented in a myriad of decorative ways, that you can look at with your very own eyeballs!* The works celebrate the strangeness of the modern person by translating the broad personalities of the community into vibrant creatures to visually delight and tickle your humor thingy.
Works will range from oil paintings to digital prints and more. Purchasable art will be available from as low as $5, up to original oil painting prices.
You can keep up to date with the event via the Facebook page
For more information about Marc Johnston, and contact details:
*Individuals found looking with eyeballs not belonging to them will be severely tutted at.
A big thank you to the Good Buzz Kombucha team for their sponsorship and support.
As well as being a natural, physical phenomena, the circle is a universally transcendent symbol. With no beginning or end, its simplicity is often used to represent totality, wholeness, original perfection and the infinite.
With increasing consumption threatening our environment, and being passionate about sustainability, van Duijnhoven and van Hulle also go Full Circle by giving new life to objects and materials that have already had a use and a history. The re-use of objects is an important contribution to extending the life-cycle of materials. As individuals can we really make a difference? Is it still possible to free ourselves from the shackles of materialism and achieve a minimal life?
We are excited to announce Thread Redemption in the Thistle Hall Community Gallery. This week- long event will raise awareness and offer creative ideas around how we deal with clothing and textile waste in Aotearoa. There will be a range of family friendly drop-in activities to try, free & low-cost evening workshops (ticketed) and the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion.
Our event schedule will be released this week - 12 - 18 March 2018
Daily drop in activities include: Table Loom Weaving, Decorative Mending, Pompomtastic!, Sewing Repair Cafe 101, Ocean Plait Mat, Make Your Own Produce Bags.
Good Luck Works explores the interplay between good luck and hard work, which plays out as we all agitate for our little patch of Pantone Greenery. Good luck can work, but it also works – and it often works hard.
Fortune cookies, breakfast cereal, soy sauce and money bag dumplings - not to mention a wall of waving cats. Good Luck Works offers a lucky dip into the straight and narrow of hard work, and the tectonic shifts and orbital off-coursing of good luck. But it’s not strictly business. It is, in fact, also personal, telling the backstory of a baking business and the business of backing yourself.
You ‘have a lucky break’ and crack open the fortune cookie included with your takeout order, what does it say? Come in, write up your fortune cookie fortune and have it included in Fortune Favours, an audience driven artwork. And read what others have to say about good luck and hard work.
Exhibition Event
The Chocolate Bar presents Bold, Brave and Unique Craft Chocolate – A Guided Tasting Session
7pm, Thursday 15 March
For one night only Luke Owen Smith from The Chocolate Bar is taking over the gallery for a bespoke chocolate tasting session. Luke has curated a selection of delicious and adventurous craft chocolates specifically for this evening tasting.
Tickets for this event can be purchased at $25 each from thechocolatebar.nz.
Fortune favours those who book early.
Opening on Wednesday 7 March, Anneke Nahkies is exhibiting a collection of pointe ballet shoes. These are mostly used shoes that, having fulfilled their original function, Anneke has ‘recovered’ to wonderful works of art that have given the shoes an ongoing and enduring purpose. In completing the work for this exhibition Anneke has married her artistic flair with her growing love of ballet and her active engagement in dance.
Anneke began creating this unusual collection in April 2017 when she joined the 100 Day Art Project. The extent of the creative endeavour involved quickly established that creating 100 artworks from 100 pairs of ballet shoes would take far longer than one 100 days!
The quality of Anneke’s work as an artist and the candour of her accompanying commentary on her chronic mental health challenges have attracted generous donations of pointe shoes for her to work with and a worldwide following on social media (see Instagram).
Looking through a lens allows the viewer to see through the Photographer’s eye. This Exhibition brings together the work of six Wellington photographers. Each project showcases a way of looking at the world that moves beyond the ordinary snapshot.
Photographers: Elise Bal, Angharad George, Jo Jansen-Thomson, Cliff Magno, Catherine O'Hare & Rick Spencer
300 and Under brings together artists that represent the community that is Pablos.
We are a creative space in Wellington’s CBD providing a studio environment where our artists can explore connecting to the process of making art.
Join us and celebrate the creative journey in all its forms as we acknowledge personal connections and communal relationships.
Check us out on Facebook and preview a selection of works to whet your appetite.
Nautilus Creative Space is the home to an exciting and diverse collective of over 20 artists and musicians on Wellington’s South Coast. From jewellers, sculptors, and painters, to carvers, leather specialists and furniture makers, artists of all types make up this inspired haven by the sea. From pieces that will delight and inspire you to those that intrigue – Nexus Please! – offers a rare chance to sample, savour and connect with a unique creative showcase from Nautilus artists.
The show features the contemporary 3D structures of artist Aaron Frater, the exquisite jewellery of Sue Keates, and the wondrous New Zealand pounamu creations of Nick Spicer Balme and Madelyne Gourdin, who are recently back from winning awards for their carving in China. Also on display will be Mary Laine’s Burtonesque marionettes, the striking flora and fauna inspired drawings of Fleur Midalia, bold emotive pieces from Jasmine Rangi Jones, Kate Muir’s quirky characterisations and surreal worlds along with eclectic works from many others.
Photo 1 Artists: Top - Nick Spicer Balme & Madelyne Gourdin; Bottom Left to Right – Xtiaan Day; Tim Mills
Photo 2 Artists: Top – Bev Tso Hong; Bottom Left to Right – Fleur Midalia; Jasmine Rangi Jones; Aaron Frater
Photo 3 Artists: Top – Su Keates; Bottom - Kate Muir
What do you see in a tree? What does a tree mean to you? When was the last time you looked at nature instead of just walking past it?
Now you can step inside Thistle Hall and experience the unique art of Michael Angelo (his real name!) who has been inspired by nature since childhood to reveal the unseen, the shapes, colours and energies of nature, translated into painted carvings that speak to you.
His inspiration comes from visits to national parks locally and in many countries, experiencing natural and often spiritual environments of trees, flowers and fauna in the form of nature spirits deep in the mystical, unspoilt forests where roots of the trees reach deep into the energy of the earth, and their branches burst heavenwards.
Come and see a display of freestanding multidimensional trees, the most recent one having taken seven months to complete with inspiration coming from a Nikau palm in Napier botanical gardens.
Nowhere else will you see nature like this, and each work of art has a story which can be retold by asking the artist himself.
Come and be prepared for a rich experience of art that feeds the senses that will appeal to people of all ages, including the visually impaired, and particularly children.
Celebrating the 5th anniversary of the YuYu Japanese Calligraphy School Wellington.
Free Workshop
with Grand Master Calligrapher Akiko Crowther
Tues 23 - Thurs 25 Jan, 11.00am - 1.00pm
Contact: akiko@yuyu.co.nz
6 days to solve all your christmas shopping needs, while supporting local, independent creatives - it's practically guilt-free!
Heaps of good stuff from just $5.
Check out Facebook for a preview of some of the good stuff on offer (updated regularly, so check back for even MORE good stuff…)
FEATURING GOOD STUFF BY:
genevieve packer, greta menzies, flora waycott, hmxhm, tutu, alani mckenna, the neighbourhood studio, felt up, gael, krat, underwood terraniums, ngaere mackinnon, gravyface designs, niche textile studio, julie+jack, mel m, amy van luijk, nomoa, bird plus bird, meniscus, catherine adam photography & design, craft me up, 2 minute needles, crafted by lori, elise brimer, baron hasselhoff's boutique hand-crafted chocolates, forest drawn, paige jarman ceramics, sam keer, vivian rodriguez and ottie & me.
Michèle Dales, artist and flax weaver, recently celebrated the start of a new decade. She is making way for the new by clearing her home of paintings and drawings that have gathered up during her life as an artist. This is a wonderful opportunity to buy beautiful pieces of her work at very reasonable prices. All work is original and one off. Any profit from sales of artwork will go towards these causes:
NZ Women's Refuge
Refugee Family Reunification
Otaki Animal Sanctuary
Jean Watson's Karunai Ilam Trust in India
'No Apologies' is Wellington HELP's first art fundraiser in many years. Please come and support us, our work with survivors, and the artists supporting us by getting along on opening night! And perhaps even do some early Christmas shopping...
We are delighted that Jan Logie MP, the new Undersecretary to the Minister of Justice with responsibility specifically for Domestic and Sexual Violence, is able to open our exhibition.
Contributing artists include Sian Torrington, Danielle Burns, Jack Trolove, Maria Colls and more. Entry to opening night is by koha.
Exhibiting artists share a commitment to our kaupapa of envisioning and bringing into being a world free from sexual and gender violence. Our theme, 'No Apologies', refers to the heartfelt response each artist has made, through their work, to this kaupapa. We look forward to seeing you there!
Expressive Drawing Workshop with Sian Torrington
1st image: Danielle Burns, photo credit Jac Lynch
Natural landscapes, myth and storytelling are at the centre of this exhibition by Hillary Reid. Featuring a collection of watercolour paintings, StoryScapes presents scenes that hint at stories you may have heard before or perhaps those that have yet to be written. Hillary takes inspiration from both traditional landscape and illustration, as well as from folklore and travel. It is always interesting to see the correlation between wild, natural environments and rich folkloric history.
Visitors will be welcome to purchase work and also contribute their own interpretations and stories of the paintings on display.
More information about the artist and contact details: