Auckland artist Kristin Carlin has discovered a new love for the work of Frances Hodgkins.
"It is an interesting idea to show contemporary painting alongside paintings made 80 years ago.
"It’s a great way to activate a space."
Carlin, who completed her master of fine arts degree at Glasgow School of Art in 2010 and is a former member of Glasgow artist-run project Victor and Hester, specialises in small-format representational artwork featuring bright bursts of colour.
She has exhibited works nationally and internationally in artist-run spaces, private galleries and public art institutions.
Carlin, who also trained at Elam School of Fine Arts, was invited by the gallery to take part in the show.
Gallery curator Lucy Hammonds said she had been watching Carlin’s practice develop since her return from Glasgow.
"I’m interested in the way in which she negotiates the space between her own work and its art-historical context. I also knew that Kirstin was interested in Frances Hodgkins, and thought this exhibition would be a good opportunity to see how she would respond to the opportunity to work directly with our collection of Hodgkins’ paintings."
"I think Through the Trees has created a chance for people to get a sense of her enduring position in New Zealand’s art history and her impact on subsequent generations of artists."
Hammonds was also interested in bringing an artist into the gallery who could ignite a new conversation around Hodgkins, "To offer our audiences the chance to see a significant body of new work by a contemporary artist that hasn’t been exhibited at DPAG before."
So Carlin visited the gallery in January to look at its collection of Frances Hodgkins’ works.
"I was particularly drawn to her gouache [watercolour mixed with opaque white paint] landscapes she did later in her career. I was not as familiar with those."
That visit and having three works of Hodgkins on her studio wall helped her come up with works for the exhibition.
"They were background noise. I don’t directly reference them."
For the past few years, Carlin, mother of a 1-year-old boy, has been painting with thick layers of paint after being inspired during her time in Scotland by the "Glasgow Boys Group" of artists and artist Samuel Peploe.
"I decided to give it a go and got carried away."
She found the small format of her works easier to paint, allowing her to use intense colours, and thickly.
"I like the fact there is the two things going on and I can paint really quickly and do a lot of work."
Admittedly not all the works turned out how she liked: an average of one work in 10 made the cut for a show.
"The good ones I paint really quickly. It could take 10 minutes or it could take a couple of hours."
As she used such thick paint, it took three to four months for her works to dry and for her to make her final selection.
"Some grow on me. Good work only gets better. I like to paint things you can live with.
"If I’m not sure about a painting and it sits around, it’s generally not one I’ll show."
She hopes having her work alongside Hodgkins’ will make people look at Hodgkins’ work differently.
"I’ve always known about her work but now I have a new-found love for it."
A particular favourite work is Mill House, Ponterwyd: "It’s gorgeous."
She also had a soft spot for the artist, given her dedication to her art in a time when female artists were not the norm.
Her favourite part of exhibiting was the unpacking process in a gallery space away from the distractions and paraphernalia of her studio.
"It brings them to life."
She is especially looking forward to the process in Dunedin as for his exhibition she chose to have the gallery space painted pink, a colour she normally used a lot in her paintings.
"In this show I’ve used more greens and blues [that] I’ve taken from Frances Hodgkins’ work, so I’ve added in the pink in the wall colour. It’s a bright pastel pink so it should make things pop and contrast with the dark turquoise the gallery walls have been painted [formerly]."
