Category: FYI

APS Editions – formerly, ‘Auckland Print Studio’ – released a new portfolio of large-scale lithographs by Susan Te Kahurangi King.

In this new series of hand-coloured lithographs, Susan King creates emergent, cell-like geometries that teem with possibility, a Cambrian explosion of kaleidoscopic, interlocking colour. King’s lyrical abstractions are networks or lattices for the mind to traverse, meditative spaces that enable dream, reflection and thought to flourish.

Susan Te Kahurangi King (b. 1951) is a self-taught artist whose interest in drawing began during her childhood in the 1950s, and over the subsequent decades has developed into a visually rich, idiosyncratic and evocative practice. Te Kahurangi King is non-verbal. The artist stopped speaking around the age of four – and from then on, her artwork has been her primary form of communication.

During her early years, much of King’s work included a strong focus on the deconstruction, recontextualisation and interpretation of pop culture iconography, ranging from Disney and Warner Bros. cartoon and comic strip characters to motifs drawn from advertising signage and illustrations. Amongst other sources, the fluid, energetic linework and rounded volumes of imported American comics provided King a wealth of motifs; Donald Duck’s blue sailor suit and hat feature in an extended series of 1960s and ‘70s works, while the sleek contours of various Disney characters’ hands, beaks and limbs gradually fold and coalesce into a novel, biomorphic visual discourse that is both culturally resonant and intensely personal.

APS Editions presented at the Aotearoa Art Fair 2022. 

Image: Susan Te Kahurangi King print. Courtesy of the artist and APS Editions. Photography by Sam Hartnett.

Jan Albers (b. 1971, Wuppertal, Germany) will present at the 2022 Aotearoa Art Fair in November with Fox Jensen & Fox Jensen McCrory. Jan Albers was born into a missionary family, grew up in Namibia and studied at the Kunstakademie Dusseldorf, home of luminaries such as Joseph Beuys, Imi Knoebel, Gerhard Richter, and Blinky Palermo. His unique pieces range from the faceted elegance of bronze wall reliefs to the nigh-on chromatic virulence of his painted wedge or chainsaw pieces in acrylic vitrines.

“Bold contrasts permeate Jan Albers’ works. Their specific dialectic of transitions and transformations finds expression in a vibrantly energetic immediateness. They are simultaneously pictures and objects, pictorial sculptures and sculptural painting, exuberant and self-contained, attractive and subversive, light and heavy, disquieting and buoyant.”

– ‘hEavydutybEauty’ by Belinda Grace Gardner.

 

Images:
Jan Albers, grEEdygrEEn, 2021.
Jan Albers in his studio. Photo by Robin Hartschen.

Jan Albers trained as a painter at the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie though from the earliest moment he realised that he was not going to be a painter in the orthodox sense. There would be no fine cedar stretchers nor carefully folded linen corners. Rather than offering pictorial space Albers objects sit out from the wall coming out to meet us. Their faceted forms caught happily between Judd and Picasso. Having dislocated the figure down into flat planes, Albers takes the Cubist paradigm and reverses it. Like metallic origami, these figures are folded crisply, visually expanding and so becoming much more than their material.

As much as Albers wished as a student to eschew convention his work touches lightly on various 20th century moments. One feels echoes of Judd and Chamberlain in their robust materiality and determined “object” status, the visceral impact of Fontana’s puncturing of the picture plane in his “chain-saw” lacerations. But there are also reverberations in form and composition that recall his namesake Anni Albers’ refined geometries or Frank Stella’s shaped canvases. Critically though Jan’s work has an extraordinary sense of contemporaneity. As cognizant as he clearly is of history, he feels determined to extend his own artistic vocabulary so that it embraces a range of connections both to architecture, even the environment complete with its blend of allure and toxicity.

Watch the video below, made as a contribution to Kunstmuseum Bonn’s ongoing series “Behind the Scenes” in 2020.

FYI –  Turumeke Harrington

Turumeke Harrington (Ngāi Tahu) has a background in Industrial Design, Shoemaking and Fine Arts; she is a mother and partner; a painter and sculptor; a jewellery maker; a designer; and an observer of life. Harrington’s multifaceted practice is both prolific, and entirely her own.

Harrington’s interest in whakapapa, space, colour and material sees her creating large sculptural installations at the intersection of art and design. Her clarity of form and function is supplemented by a poetic pragmatism and a commitment to making that is at once playful and provocative. Her sympathetic approach to materials combines with a bold colour palette to create engaging works that speak to the artist’s own personal relationships, cultural anxieties, and everyday musings.

Page Galleries (Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington) had a solo exhibition of her work titled, (Tīkaro) Slowly Dawning, at the gallery in May this year. Celebrating the ephemeral and transformational properties of light, paint, and water; this exhibition once again illustrates Harrington’s remarkable ability to work across all manner of mediums and materials to create joyful and engaging work full of narrative and aesthetic harmony and deftly deliberate discord.  Read about the exhibition below. 

Harrington also has an online store, where you can explore (and buy) a range of products made and designed by the artist. Click here to shop.

Page Galleries will be presenting works by Turumeke Harrington at the 2022 Art Fair in November, alongside paintings by  Max Gimblett and Reuben Paterson.

Image above: Installation view, Tīkaro (Slowly Dawning) photography by Cheska Brown.
Image right: Turumeke Harrington, photographed by Kate Glasson.
Images left: Turumeke Harrington, Tīkarohia Kia Whiti Mai Te KokoMea (Gouge Away), 2022. Splitting (Dawn, Headaches), 2022. Whakamārohirohi [Trapping Dawn and Dusk] V, 2022. Whakamārohirohi [Trapping Dawn and Dusk] III, 2022. Ārai (Rekareka), 2022. Photography by Cheska Brown. All images courtesy of the artist and Page Galleries.

Light, paint and water coalesce in Turumeke Harrington’s solo exhibition (Tīkaro) Slowly Dawning.

Harrington presents a suite of jelly-coloured light works featuring cut-out motifs of tuna (eel), hare, tī kōuka (cabbage tree), and whetū (star). The frosted acrylic lights appear almost as zoetropes or early animation wheels, lending the creatures a sense of implied movement; the slick iridescent body of a tuna slithering along a rocky river bottom, the strong hind legs of a hare bounding across a grassy field.

Tīkaro – to pick, scoop, tear or gouge out – alludes most literally to the technical process of creating these works, but also speaks to Harrington’s propensity to keep prodding and poking at objects, forms, and materials, endlessly playing with, and playing out concepts until a new idea dawns, swiftly followed by another, and another. So pervasive is Harrington’s tongue-in-cheek style, it’s difficult not to speculate about additional layers of meaning or interpretation, forever wary there is some gag we’ve overlooked. The artist admits that there is a vaguely patriarchal reading to these works, that in her own early kōrero around the lights and motifs she was thinking a lot about the cultural constructions of masculinity.

 Whakamārohirohi [trapping dawn and dusk] plays with the idea of whakamārohirohi – to stiffen, become strong or harden up – and the stereotype of the ‘Southern Man’ as a figure defined by his strength and stoicism in the service of colonial forces. This series of unique works builds on an earlier series Whakamārohirohi [with hands like dinner plates], reimagining them at sunrise and sunset. Each the size of a dinner plate, the lights speak to histories of mahika kai with a troubled and complicated understanding of both masculinity and ingenuity: envisioning a future where our thorny and interconnected histories can be pushed up against each other and made into something new.

The whetū motif references the pūrākau (story, myth) of Tāwhirimātea gouging out his eyes in rage at the separation of his parents Papatūānuku and Rakinui, throwing them into the sky to become the stars known as Matariki (​​‘Ngā Mata o te Ariki Tāwhirimātea’ / ‘The eyes of the god Tāwhirimātea’). Several titles allude to the phrase ‘ki tua o te ārai’ or “beyond the veil”, referring euphemistically to death, but here employed by Harrington in relation to dawn and dusk; those transitional and most ethereal times of day when it seems we might be able to reach through into other realms, picking and gouging holes through the imperceptible veil.

Alongside the twelve coloured lights are a series of corresponding watercolours depicting tī kōuka, their warm hues pulled from the shifting palette of the sky. In contrast to the highly polished industrially manufactured lights, these delicate works on paper reveal something charmingly intimate about the repetitive and meditative act of making, with the artist’s hand, and her delight in the process immediately evident.

 (Tīkaro) Slowly Dawning celebrates the ephemeral and transformational properties of light, paint, and water; once again illustrating Harrington’s remarkable ability to work across all manner of mediums and materials to create joyful and engaging work full of narrative and aesthetic harmony and deftly deliberate discord.

Introducing mothermother – a collaborative project space where each exhibition is made by two women artists, who then select two more women artists to make the next exhibition.

Founder, organiser and artist, Natalie Tozer describes mothermother as “…a project space for both emerging artists and established artists who may (or may not) be represented by our good friends – the dealer galleries! The aim of the project is to offer space and opportunity to artists to collaborate or initiate work within the mothermother network. The inception of this project was two-pronged. At the time I was doing my MFA where 75% of my fellow students were women. I came to read Fiona Jack’s counterfutures article on the on-going issues of representation in the market and collections, to find the stats revealed 75% male representation. 

The other reason I started this project was based on my research around collective modes of knowledge sharing and unearthing. Usually my unearthing is geologically based,  but I also wanted to start a more conceptual and didactic journey about the ground. I started looking at grass-roots organisations with flat, non-hierarchial, anti-capitalist formations and I wondered what an anarchist syndicalist network would look like in the art world! It was then I decided the space I had the privilege to share should be for woman artists. I’m definitely a fan of exploring the murky grey space of complex issues but in this case the simplicity of 100% representation seemed like the right thing to do.

My role is to organise the projects curatorial function where exhibiting artists pass the baton by inviting the next artist into the collective. It’s an ever-expanding circle of caretakers that ensure space is available for future generations of the project. We’ve been going since mid 2019 and I cant wait to share the upcoming work!”

mothermother presented the work of all 18 “mothermother” artists in their 18 sq metre booth in He Iti – the section of the 2022 Art Fair for new galleries and artist-run spaces, on the mezzanine of The Cloud.

Natalie Tozer, Companion Pieces, 2021.
Caitlin Devoy, Power, 2021.
Sandra Bushby, Unknown Sea Lilly, 2021.

Lapping at Your Door is a sculptural commission by Emma Fitts, which was shown at Objectspace in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.  Emma is represented in Aotearoa by Melanie Roger Gallery and presented new works with the gallery in a group presentation at the Aotearoa Art Fair.

Images:
Muse with Lace in the Laundry, 2018.
Composition in Green, 2019.
Jacket Cut Out 9, 2019.

In the outdoor installation, Lapping at Your Door, a series of dyed and layered canvas panels attached to a tubular steel structure form a new architecture for Objectspace’s courtyard plinth.

Emma’s soft architecture folds together various research threads: modernist design, the body in relation to built environments and the construction of clothing, and how queer physicality can be expressed through the collapsing of architectural space.

Between 1926 — 1929 Eileen Gray designed and constructed E-1027 on the coastline of the Côte d’Azur in the south of France. The front façade of this iconic piece of modernist architecture is spanned by a canvas canopy, its textile softness creating a porous threshold where delineation between spaces is softened.  Gray’s canopies serve as an example of the architectural and design developments made by women who both practiced within and subverted historical cannons. For Fitts’, these designs embody the desires of their creators and occupants. They are a backdrop for socialising and conversation in open space — often in radical ways, and in queer company.

Referencing these histories and the architecture of her own home, Fitts’ has constructed an outdoor installation for Objectspace, incorporating her signature fabric banners, imagining how bodies of space that resist clear demarcation provide alternative ways of seeing and making.

For more info on Emma Fitts practice, and contact details for Melanie Roger Gallery, click here.

Emma Fitts, Lapping at Your Door, installed at Objectspace. Image courtesy of the artist and Objectspace.

Over 80 photographs by Arts Foundation Icon, Ans Westra – who will have a solo presentation with {Suite} at the 2022 Aotearoa Art Fair in November – are showing now in an exhibition at Te Awahou / Foxton.  Titled Ans Westra Photographs: after Handboek, the exhibition refers back to the Handboek: Ans Westra Photographs project, a large-scale survey exhibition and publication of Westra’s photographs, curated by Luit Bieringa, which toured Aotearoa and The Netherlands from 2004-2007.

Ans Westra immigrated to New Zealand in 1957, and has spent her photographic career – which spans over 60 years –  largely documenting social and cultural practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. Well known for her particular interest in the socio-political lives of Māori families as well as individual portraits, throughout the second half of the 20^th century, Westra’s photographic practice has been both, at times controversial, and widely considered as one of New Zealand’s most influential.

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Collection website describes Westra’s practice:

Westra has used a medium-format, waist-level viewfinder camera for most of her life. She feels that it allows her to be more unobtrusive: ‘You don’t put it up to your eyes, so you don’t obscure your own vision. People are not nearly so aware of a little box at waist level, so you don’t interrupt your own interaction with the scene, and I interact as little as possible…. people seem to forget about me really.’¹

Westra’s photographs sit within a humanist tradition of photography. They are empathetic, warm, and affirm human values. She often captures telling moments of gesture and interaction – a glance, touch or stance:  ‘In my photography I’m looking for communication between people and the right moment. Catching the right moment in full swing. One that sums up an emotion.’²

1. John Saker, City interview: Ans Westra, Wellington City Magazine, April 1986, p 21.
2. Athol McCredie, The New Photography: New Zealand’s first-generation contemporary photographers, Wellington, Te Papa Press, 2019, p. 172.

Ans Westra Photographs: after Handboek is showing now until Sunday 19 June at Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom, in Te Awahou / Foxton – for more info click here.

Selected works by Ans Westra can be viewed throughout the year at {Suite} in either Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland or Te Whanganui-a-Tara / Wellington

Images: Ans Westra, Ruatoria, 1963 (from ‘Washday at the Pa’) Archival pigment inks on Hahnemuhle paper, 380 x 380 mm. Edition of 25. Ans Westra
Springbok Protest, Wellington, 1981, Archival pigment inks on Hahnemuhle paper, 380 x 380 mm. Edition of 25. Ans Westra Ohinemutu, c. 1963 [two tamariki], Archival pigment inks on Ilford Galerie gold fiber silk, 380 x 380 mm. Edition of 25. All images courtesy of the artist and {Suite}.

Images: Simon Lewis-Wards, Giant Knucklebones. Cast Concrete. 1500 x 1000 x 500mm each (approximately 300kg each). Images courtesy of the artist and Black Door Gallery.

The 2022 Art Fair will again be featuring an outdoor sculpture space overlooking the harbour.  One of the more interactive sculptures will be Simon Lewis-Wards‘ Giant Knucklebones which visitors will be welcome to sit or climb on.

Presented by Black Door Gallery Simon Lewis-Wards’ work is synonymous with childhood nostalgia. They conjure that experience of growing up in Aotearoa in the second half of the 20th century, a time of sweets and games, playing with the neighbourhood kids outside in the long summer evenings and spending all your hard-earned pocket money at the corner dairy.  The artist has developed a body of work that seeks to inspire a sense of childlike excitement, oscillating between nostalgia and pop-culture, and often playing with scale to enhance the viewing experience.

Giant Knucklebones explores the childhood game knucklebones, an iconic children’s activities in New Zealand. The name knucklebones is derived from the Ancient Greek version of the game, but there are different variants of the game from various cultures using objects such as stones, seashells and seeds. Many are also familiar with the American version- Jacks. Wards’ Knucklebones are modelled on sheep knucklebones, are up-sized to 1.5m wide and made in cast concrete. When placed in an outdoor setting they look as if they have been tossed mid-game.

Simon Lewis Wards’ aesthetic is about having fun and bringing humour into the art world. Inspired by international Pop Artists and American artist’s such as Jeff Koons, Simon Lewis-Wards aims to explore popular culture and elevate everyday objects to a new level.

Simon Lewis Wards was recently appointed as one of three judges for the 2022 IHC Art Awards.

Introducing Atong Atem whose photographic works will be presented by Naarm/Melbourne based, MARS Gallery at the 2022 Aotearoa Art Fair in November.

Atong Atem is an Ethiopian-born, Naarm/Melbourne-based artist who works predominantly with photography, although Atem works also in video and is a writer and curator. The South Sudanese artist uses portraiture as a means of recounting indigenous stories that throughout history have been lost – or rather overwritten by colonial knowledge. Atem’s work reclaims this knowledge. She uses a vibrant colour palette coupled with a critical lens to create works which are eye catching yet also deeply political and sincere. In a recent article with The Guardian, Atong Atem commented on her work saying: “‘Yes, it’s political, gendered and racial,’ Atem says. ‘But what isn’t?’” ¹

Atong Atem’s photography was shown by MARS Gallery in a solo exhibition at photo basel – Switzerland’s first and only international art fair dedicated to photography based art.

Images:
Green Fields, 2022
I Have Two of Everything 1, 2022

¹ Keeping it real: the vivid photography of Atong Atem in pictures.

Earlier this year, Atong Atem was the first recipient of the La Prairie Art Award, an acquisitive award championing the work of Australian women artists presented by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, and La Prairie.

The new partnership between the Art Gallery and Swiss luxury skincare house La Prairie, the prestigious award supports Australian women artists through the development or expansion of a new body of work. The La Prairie Art Award aims to support and nurture the recipient’s practice and increase their international profile. Each work will be acquired by the Art Gallery for its collection.

Atem was selected as the inaugural recipient of the award by the Art Gallery of NSW and La Prairie’s global board of directors. Atem was awarded for her originality and ambitiously crafted and vibrant photographic portraits that celebrate their subjects.

Atem has exhibited her work across Australia, including MUMA Monash, Gertrude Contemporary, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales and State Library Victoria. Atem was also the recipient of the inaugural National Gallery of Victoria and MECCA M-Power scholarship in 2018.

Gerold Miller (b. 1961 Germany, lives and works between Berlin, Germany and Pistoia, Italy). Miller’s debut exhibition at Starkwhite presents the largest display of his Monoform series to date. A group of artworks made of horizontally hung beams that talk directly to the galleries architecture, whilst exploring the concept of an open structure. Alongside these is a group of the artists “paintings” comprising his notorious Sets, Instant Vision and Total Object series. These works are made with aluminium or stainless steel substrates, coated in either matte or glossy lacquer to present finely shaded gradients and bold monochromatic tones.

Miller is known for both his “sculptural” works which discuss architectural and spacial properties and his aluminium and steel “paintings,” which explore the rudimentary basis of both painting and sculpture as practices.

This exhibition, sees him oscillate between image, relief, sculpture, and architecture, all radically (and precisely) reduced to a composition of colour, line, shape and form. Miller’s practice is one of space and time, stagnancy and movement, subject and object, where viewer and work merge into one unified artwork.

Gerold Miller’s work was included in STARKWHITE’s presentation at the 2022 Aotearoa Art Fair.

Image credits: (Top, left-right) Gerold Miller, set 507, 2018 Laquered stainless steel 60h x 48w x 3.50d cm. set 508, 2018. Laquered stainless steel 60h x 48w x 3.50d cm. set 510, 2018. Laquered stainless steel 60h x 48w x 3.50d cm. (Above, left-right) installation image featuring Gerold Miller at Starkwhite, Auckland. Gerold Miller, I love Kreuzberg1, 2006 Digital print, framed in black. Monoform 71, 2018. Six laquered aluminium angles 15h x 300w 15d cm. Images courtesy of the artist and Starkwhite.