Abstract Merit Prize

Nine

Joyfully I have received the Abstract Merit Prize from The Waitakere Trusts Art & Sculpture Exhibition held at Corbans Estate Art Centre 4-12 October 2013. The prize was awarded by Linda Tyler for a watercolour entitled Nine. She wrote these kind words about it:

Showing full control of the difficult medium of watercolour 

in the overlay of colours this artist is able to create a delicate 

pattern purely in pastels. Mathematically complex, yet simple 

and evocative of crystals, origami and organic structures 

abundant in nature.

Other finalists can be seen here.

Finalist in Objective Art Awards

At Mangere Arts Centre - 63 Orly Ave, Mangere, Auckland until December 1st.

NZ Sculpture Onshore 2012

FORT TAKAPUNA

AUCKLAND

Locator 2012
found wood, paint, brass, steel
170 x 12 x 12cm

Locator

To be exhibited at NZ Sculpture Onshore (Fort Takapuna, Auckland) 8-18th November 2012

     Locator 2012
       found post, paint
       2.8 x .15 x .15m

Suspension/Place with Philippa Nielsen at Artstation, Auckland

NOW @ Second Storey: August 2011

My first solo show, NOW, was held at Second Storey: an artist-run space on Karangahape Road, Auckland, NZ.

A Flag That Has Now Written On It flies atop the building next door to Second Storey.

A CCTV security camera watches from across the road and wirelessly transmits the video signal back across to a receiver in the window of Second Storey.

The receiver passes the video signal through to the back room via a long cable.

In the back room the projector shows a static-harassed image of a pole that holds aloft the intermittently billowing flag.

In the front room Monument hangs, the tails of the vertical flags going with the lie of the floor.

(A Flag With Now Written On It atop the La Gonda Building on K Rd.)

The Trouble With Being A Proud Pakeha

My art practice is motivated by a realisation that I have been deeply naïve about the cultural realities of my country.  Moving from the South Island to the North Island was the first step towards understanding what it means to ‘be’ and ‘become’ Pakeha, and what this can mean in a global post-colonial context. Parallel to ongoing cultural research, I visually document North and South to allow motifs and signifiers to come to the foreground; Objects materialize from this process, operating as ‘souvenirs’ to moments of discovery. Essentially, my art practice applies a ‘soft activist’ approach to the colonial condition of overwriting history. These images are from my Master of Art & Design (Visual Arts) exhibition held at St Paul St Gallery, Auckland, in November 2010.

Souvenirs To Moments Of Discovery From 2009

The Russell Lupins of The South Island display a magnificent array of crayonbox colours in the summertime. Covering fields and riverbeds and lining the edges of the highways of the Central South Island, they create a heady sense of scenic wonder that belies their true nature of epidemic weed status, (as they negatively impacts on the habitat of threatened braided riverbed birds). In 2009 I explored these opposing sentiments with an 'illegal' street art project 'beautifying' Grey Lynn, Auckland City. Essentially the ongoing work is an analogy for the post-colonial realisations I've had after looking a little harder at the physical and cultural landscapes of Aotearoa New Zealand.