(Blue Oyster Art Project Space)
"Whakawhanaukataka" weaves the idea of relationship building and connectedness through an installation of clay-based works, or earth-materials, as referenced in the exhibition catalogue.
To learn about the show, I attended a clay bead-making workshop facilitated by the artist Jess Nicholson (Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Kāi Tahu, Ngāi Tūāhuriri, Pākehā). We shared memories of early creative experiences with clay, while also learning about Nicholson’s work and some of the techniques the artist employs. Nicholson’s practice embodies a cultural and personal felt connection to whenua and this sense of connectedness is also realised in the work and its installation.
Eighteen works are dynamically displayed, with some works at floor level and others above eye height. Suspended in the centre of the space is a curtain of hanging clay beads. Each bead is unique. There are little loops or small rock forms, for example, all arranged in small vertical clusters.
Nicholson likes to incorporate diverse earth-materials such as sand, silt and glass into the works, generating experimental ruptures of texture and colour, analogous to geographical processes.
Site specificity is also utterly central to the exhibition and Nicholson’s approach. The places from which the materials were collected to make the work are all significant, intentional and connected to the artist, ranging from ancestral sites for Ngāi Tūāhuriri, to ash collected from household fireplaces, for example.
Henry Turner’s current work sits at an intersection of storytelling and religious aesthetics, providing a narrative and aesthetic scaffold that is both the artist’s own way of seeing and an invitation to imagine and engage with conceptual realities.
A feature wall of this exhibition is symmetrically arranged like the painted gesso panels of a Sienese church altarpiece. Set against dusty pink wall with accompanying beeswax taper candles and two chairs, is a series of works that appear to unfold from a central focal point. Gold is a predominant element.
At its heart, in shimmering silver and gold on an earthy red-ochre died silk support, Your Better Way Up! Feat. Nichola Shanley (2024) is a resplendent textile work embellished with gold-plated metal and precious materials, such as amber, onyx and jasper. This work is flanked by gouache on gesso panels: Pillar With Two Crowds (2024), for example, features a host of uniform figures in a landscape, with tiny red headdress or halos, making gestures of protest or prayer.
In new and engaging manifestations, Turner revisits visual concerns and conceptual motifs, such as a conical cracked hill, stars, or attentively rendered plant-life. Also reflecting something of the artist’s journey, is a large-scale model train made by Turner’s grandfather and a drawing of a train by the artist as a young child.
(Slant Art Project Space)
Vibrant impasto paintings by Ana Rathbone and abstract textile compositions by Sophie McDonagh comprise this small duo show full of fun and energetic visual conversations across the gallery space. As the title suggests, in many ways the works on display appear to mimic each other in colour and form.
The colour relationships between the works are especially felt, appearing to feature as a shared concern and cohesive element. Complementary colour combinations within single works or between combinations of works are immediately engaging. Oranges and blues, for example, might include adjacent and analogous soft pinks.
The works by both artists are primarily 2D, four-sided and designed to hang on a wall. They also share a strong sculptural quality. In Rathbone’s work, impasto paint plays with the light; within the paint pigments are dusty matte or glossy flourishes, where compositional edges appear thick and malleable against the flat support. In McDonagh’s work, fabric texture and thread are combined to create compositional and visual juxtapositions. McDonagh uses materials such as towels and sleeping bags, where synthetic gloss of nylon or polyester sit against the fluffy texture of towelling fabric; quilted grids or netting and small coiling embroidered ribbons complete the compositions.
By Joanna Osborne
