PAST SHOWCASE EXHIBITIONS

The only contemporary art prize in Aotearoa New Zealand with ecology at its core.

Artists were invited to research and respond to the Tāmaki Estuary, to underscore the ecological value of this vital waterway and encourage action against its pollution.

With a total prize pool of $10,000, the winning artworks are intelligent and innovative responses to ecology in the field of contemporary art.

This year’s entries will be judged by Benjamin Work.

Benjamin Work is an artist, Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland-born and raised, with Tongan and Scottish heritage. Work’s evolution exemplifies the new trajectories of artists reared on American sub/pop culture, while also explicitly exploring the complexities of both cultural institutions and the Moana Oceania diaspora. He currently resides alongside the Tāmaki Estuary in Pakuranga where throughout his life he has experienced the changing complexities and pressures upon this unique ecosystem. He was awarded the 2019 CMBB Para Site International Art Residency in Hong Kong, a 2021 Finalist – Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards and author of Whenua Fonua ‘Enua and Motutapu books. He continues to exhibit both nationally and internationally and is represented by Bergman Gallery.

Call for Entries
Entries are CLOSED

Exhibition of Finalists
1 July to 26 August 2023
Awards Ceremony
Saturday 1 July 2023, 2:30PM

Image: Daisy Nicholas, Coastal Echo, 2022

Exhibition dates: Sunday 28 May – Saturday 24 June

The Howick Photographic Society is proud to showcase a large selection of images by award winning and emerging photographers. The public is warmly welcomed to view the wide range of styles and subjects on display. All photographs on display are available for purchase.

Established in 1956, the Howick Photographic Society holds meetings, and supports photographers in their photographic journey. The club has a strong history of successes in local, national and international competitions.

Opening night: 13 May, 3:00PM – 6:00PM

Exhibition dates: Saturday 13 May – Friday 26 May

The “dairy experience” is something both Catherine Guevara and Juliana Duran can relate to as migrants in Aotearoa. There is a normalcy in entering these spaces who are generally owned by other migrants.

it is important for Cath and Juliana to commemorate the resilience and perseverance of their journeys, as it is essential to celebrate the diversity Aotearoa has to offer.

11 February – 25 February 2023

Inspired by her own painting ‘Navel-gazing’ (A finalist in The Adam Portraiture Exhibition 2022 and currently travelling around Aotearoa and features as the first release of advertising for the Pride Festival).

Katie Blundell Artist continues to explore the ‘self’. A collector once explained that owning her work was like having a page of her diary. Here she shares a medley of pages. Blundell exhibits a retrospective salon on the gallery wall and some new, small, mono prints based on self portraiture on the opposite of the concourse.

The Howick Floral Art Club are delighted to be part of the celebration of Howick’s 175th anniversary with a showcase of contemporary floral art designs exhibited at UXBRIDGE. The designs are to illustrate how floral art has developed in New Zealand over the past 45 years. The Howick Floral Art Club was established in 1975 and have taken this opportunity to embody some of the many relevant changes over this time.
The current exhibition highlights and represents modern floral art. The individual pieces use a variety of structural art techniques while paralleled with the fundamentals of basic floral design. The artworks showcase excellent skill and knowledge from the makers.

We invite you to browse and enjoy this short exhibition which is much more than ‘Bunches or Bouquets’

Mā Te Huruhuru Artists’ installation tells the story of Tāmaki Estuary ecology, beginning with the takutai moana shoreline, moving into wai moana the water, onto the adjoining whenua land, up to rangi sky, and reaching high to ngā whetu Matariki stars.

TURNING is an interactive exhibition of kinetic, photographic and sculptural work created in collaboration with interdisciplinary artist, Lucinda Boermans, and technician, Alan Eaton. It is a creative response to Peter Sloterdijk’s Atmospheric Philosophy. Spheres of Being, a trilogy written and conceived over a period of 6 years (between 1998 and 2004). Sloterdijk’s historically informed theory details “a shift in how humans understand the world, and an ontology of space which is concerned with the particular ‘spheres’ they inhabit.”

TURNING explores space as spheres of influence; it is about poetics of space expressed through movement and sound. It invites us to consider attention and our relational position in the world. Equally, it is about acts of relational aesthetics (of “being in spheres”) realised through process-based enquiry, collaborative exchange and interaction “in-the-making”. As Boermans notes, TURNING took shape over nine months, through the unfolding of tales, recounted conversations, note-taking and emails sent in exchange.

In addition to this exhibition, two complementary workshops will be held for children. More information can be found here.

Make Pom Poms – 15 March to 29 April 2022

Head to UXBRIDGE, Te Tuhi or Ormiston Town Centre to pick up your yarn ball and drop the pom pom off later on when you finish.

Exhibition – 9 April to 6 May 2022

Each week, all pom poms that are made by the public will be collected from the drop-off centres. These will be added to the installation, allowing the community to see the evolving artwork.

Whale Tales is an immersive public art trail, across Tāmaki Makaurau!

Inspired by the threatened (nationally critical) Bryde’s whale, the trail is made up of 80 Big Broo and 82 Pēpi Pod whale Tail sculptures dotted around Auckland’s streets, parks, and open spaces.

Explore the unique and stunning whale Tail sculptures, designed by talented artists and students, and sponsored by generous businesses and organisations. Every Tail has its own tale too, so soak up the rich stories as you journey through the trail.

After the trail ends, the sculptures will be auctioned to raise funds for WWF-New Zealand’s vital work to protect and restore the Hauraki Gulf and the Bryde’s whales that call it home.

There are seven (7) whale tails inside UXBRIDGE – can you find them all? Pick up your map from reception!

whaletales2022.org

The Howick Photographic Society, in conjunction with the Auckland Festival of Photography and the Howick 175^th Anniversary, is proud to showcase a large selection of images by award winning and emerging photographers.

The exhibition opens on May 30th with the public warmly welcomed to view the wide range of styles and subjects on display. This wonderful exhibition will run at the Uxbridge Centre in Howick from the opening until the 18th June. The photographs on display are all available for purchase in almost any size that you require, should you wish to have one or more of these works gracing your home or business.

The Howick Photographic Society was established in 1956 and today has a strong following of members from the very experienced through to members just starting out on their photographic journey. Experienced members regularly hold tuition forums for those wishing to improve and warmly welcome anyone with an interest in this art form with workshops, outings and competitions available for everyone. The club has a strong history of successes in local, national and international competitions.

Physical meetings, in pre and post Covid times, are held at the clubrooms below the Bridge Club at the Howick Recreation Centre Complex. At the moment, all meetings are conducted on Zoom and new members have expressed their enthusiasm for the progress that they have made whilst having only experienced this form of contact.

For further information, please contact [email protected]

Indulge your love of photography with the Howick Photographic Society; encouraging and helping photographers to grow in the Eastern suburbs since 1956.

We invite you to visit and be inspired by an exhibition of our members work, in both the print and digital medium.

Our Society is vibrant, friendly and social. We meet 3 Monday evenings each month, from February to December, in the basement of the Bridge Club, Howick Recreation Centre, Highland Park.

All visitors are welcome. Join us now.

www.howickphotographicsociety.org.nz.

27 August to 30 September 2018

Opening Saturday 25 August, 2.30PM

Students from Macleans College and Edgewater College participated in a workshop with international visiting artist, Cath Love.  Over the course of one day, students explored digital and traditional painting techniques and worked on a final composition for an urban contemporary artwork of their own.

Eleven students participated in the workshop, supported by Howick Local Board.

16 February to 30 March 2018

Wei Lun Ha is a Vietnam-born Chinese New Zealander. His art practice is based around his keen interest in eco-friendly issues and contemporary identity in Chinese ink paintings which is continually evolving and not easily reducible to definite categories. His paintings embrace the pulsating energy and richness of different cultures and create an intensity that is covered with interpretation and stories.

Last year Wei Lun travelled to Vermont to complete a 3-month residency to further develop ink porcelain painting.  Wei Lun is exhibiting a selection of these works as part of our Chinese New Year celebrations.

4 June to 30 June 2018

Like the phenomena captured by applied scientific photography, Home Science explores connections between light, water and altered states of matter through images centering on a vortex motif, capturing an energy flow within the life-growth cycle.

Presented as part of:

15 January to 2 March 2018

This exhibition has a focus revolving around the human spirit. Helen Wang has been working for two years particularly on the Tibetan People series, which the works in the exhibition is mostly comprised of. Her wish is to capture the character and uniqueness of every individual, to express each person’s identity and story for viewers to understand.

UXBRIDGE SHOWCASE

1 March to 20 March 2019

Cleanliness is intrinsic to the advent of civilization and the human separation from nature. It implies structure, sanity and order, whereas dirt connotes unconventionality, the unhinged, the seedy and precarious. Dirt is deliberated mayhem.

This body of work stems from a questioning of social codes and a fascination with the coarsely textured world.

Inga was awarded a Post Graduate Diploma with distinction from Elam School of Fine Arts in 2018 and is continuing her Master in Fine Arts study this year.

Sunday 21 July – Friday 6 September

“Dynamic Paintings full of symbolism and expression with playing composition” – This is the shortest expression of Dana’s art work since she came to New Zealand.

Some artworks have the ability to rotate the composition. They like to be loved and for the viewer to notice the meaning and details. The viewer might feel happiness and poetic motifs.

Seven exhibitions until 2020 in Auckland have made her busy as a freelance painter during these four years.

Dana was born in Persia and, at the age 3, moved to Sweden with her family. Later she returned to Persia where she graduated from University with a master of painting. She has been lecturing Photography, Painting, and Graphic Design for the past 8 years. She managed several research projects and wrote several articles on cultural aspects of the role of modern design in Shiraz.

Image: Pink Dream – Dana Dadi

The Concourse

19 June to 30 June

Wear the World 2019 is a wearable arts competition for primary and intermediate school students (years 5, 6, 7, and 8) in the East Auckland area. This is a competition about creativity that includes being resourceful with what is already in our environment. Students will be showcasing garments they have designed and created themselves – featuring five culturally diverse categories that reflect the diversity of their own communities.

The theme this year is ‘Cultural Diversity’, aimed at celebrating and promoting the arts in East Auckland, as well as getting local schools to collaborate and work towards a common goal. The students will learn how to work together and develop technical and artistic skills involved with creating a wearable garment. They will develop a deeper awareness of the culture that they are exploring and how diversity can be celebrated in our modern world.

Wear the World is lucky enough to be sponsored this year by:
AUT (Auckland University of Technology)
Monterey Cinemas
Life FM
Uxbridge Arts Centre

The schools taking part in this event are: Cockle Bay Primary, Elim Middle School, Bucklands Beach Intermediate, Somerville Intermediate, Farm Cove Intermediate,and Maraetai Beach School.

UXBRIDGE SHOWCASE

9 February to 24 February 2019

As part of our Chinese New Year Celebrations, an exhibition of several contemporary Chinese artists will fill our Showcase and Meeting Room spaces.  Traditional and modern examples of photography, calligraphy and painting will be on display.

Image: Haifeng Tu, Life, 2015

15 January to 3 February 2019

Roma Anderson is a local artist who recently graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts.  Throughout her studies she has been investigating the nearby Tamaki Estuary, documenting the ever-changing environment and surrounding flora and fauna with a wider focus on the agency of environments and how they are valued aesthetically and politically.

For this exhibition, Anderson will showcase several images from her Estuary investigation, bringing focus and attention to this fragile ecosystem.

Anderson is an avid analogue and digital alternative method artist, she never does things quite in the way they are conventionally done. Alongside her environmental concerns, she is particularly interested in politics of female representation in cinema, and the roles of spectator, voyeur, auteur and character in film.

The Concourse

30 May to 30 June

A compilation of the best and most treasured photos taken by members of the University of Auckland Photography Society while travelling overseas. However, each photo provides only a small glimpse into the beautiful world beyond the horizon. Therefore, we hope that this exhibition inspires creativity, encourages adventure, and gives those who need it: a nudge to go out and explore the world!

Curated by the University of Auckland Photography Society

15 January to 15 February 2018

Opening Saturday 20 January, 2.30PM

Yvonne Abercrombie paints figures using equal amounts of opposing ideas; comic and classical, kitsch colour and natural hues; fake imagery and real content.

Her bold portraits draw inspiration from a broad range of genres – romance novel art, comic and pulp art, medieval manuscripts, mythological representation and naive art.   These sources provide her with a diverse visual library of the figure, from which she gains a greater understanding and appreciation of alternative representations of the female form.

3 December 2018 to 13 January 2019

Briana Woolliams is a recent Elam graduate who will be exhibiting a selection of works in December.  Her practice incorporates poetry, sculpture and printmaking and reconnoitres issues related to the contemporary female experience and gender politics.  Through personal experiences, Woolliams explores the potential to renegotiate a feminine persona that defies easy categorization or conformity.

Briana Woolliams has exhibited at George Fraser Gallery, Tacit Gallery and as part of the Arts Out East Festival.

Linda’s artworks reflect layers of nature through an exploration of colour and texture, a self-taught artist who has a distinct textured abstract style of painting. From years working in ceramics in the 70’s and 80’s, Stoneware with its rough organic finishes to the fine metallic reflective colours of Raku, Linda has been painting for 15 years – exploring patterns created through the movement of water and creating works which reveal and expose natural elements. She creates a range of artworks, from small inexpensive pieces to larger inspiring works which make a bold statement.

9 October to 31 December 2017

Lou Pendergrast-Mathieson presents a new series of original glass works at UXBRIDGE. Pendergrast-Mathieson’s translucent shapes transform the space into an ethereal skyscape – clouds float past on like on a gentle breeze, leaving colour and light in their wake.

Pendergrast-Mathieson is an accomplished glass artist based in Auckland. Her practice centers on cast glass forms that relate to nature.

She teaches glass casting at UXBRIDGE.

Mo Stewart

“I am interested in human psychology, and specifically the relationship between the conscious and unconscious mind. My work is a means of expressing the unconscious mind, while also engaging it in relation to conscious art making strategies.

In Jungian psychology the word ‘Anima’ refers to the soul and is the part of our inner personality that is in communication with the subconscious. The works in this exhibition are a means of expressing the unconscious mind, while engaging it in relation to conscious art making strategies.

My drawings are process based and explore Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist techniques along with automatic drawing and deliberate mark making that emphasise the tension or balance between these elements.  The medium I use and the technique when applying the gestural mark is suggestive of the unconscious approach to mark making while the deliberate drawings speak to the tension between the two different aspects of the mind.

Repetition and accumulation in my recent works, along with spontaneous gestures made in the liquid medium allows me to explore the interplay of these different techniques. This allows me to react to a given gesture, permitting the drawing to unfold and take shape, making my mark on the mark that made itself.

14 November to 2 December 2017

Opening Tuesday November 14, 10.30AM

A meeting room is a transient space hosting varying groups with specific agendas. Unlike the stark white void of the gallery, the meeting room commands a certain type of behaviour from its visitors with its practical furniture, patterned carpets and serene atmosphere.

In this exhibition, artists from Mapura Studios explore meeting room culture; the rituals, behaviour and paraphernalia associated with this space. Our artists investigate how this culture accommodates people with diverse needs and what role art can play in this environment.

Mapura Studios is a creative space for artists of all ages living with diversity and disability. We have a broad range of programmes across many media including music, movement, poetry and the visual arts.

June to September 2017

Sculptures by Peter Lange and Louise Purvis take residence in the Sculpture Courtyard until early September. Louise Purvis is a New Zealand sculptor (b. 1968, Pahiatua) based in Auckland.  Small Form explores her interest in topographical mapping, made from individual cages that can be connected and rearranged to produce a variety of shapes. Born in New Zealand in 1944, Peter Lange first came into contact with bricks as a production thrower in the 1970s, and has been working with them ever since. Like much of his work, S Chair in Bricks is a parody of a ‘real world’ object that simultaneously serves its purpose.

Image credit: Louise Purvis, Small Forms, 2015, courtesy of the James Wallace Arts Trust.

13 September to 6 October 2017

Opening: Tuesday 12 September, 5.30PM

As part of the winter season of jewellery classes at UXBRIDGE, tutor Simon Misdale challenges his students to design and make a piece of wearable jewellery from everyday objects or found things.

On display will be works created by Simon’s students.

24 July to 9 September 2017

Opening: Saturday 22 July, 2.30PM

Works by Christopher Duncan will be on display in UXBRIDGE Showcase this July.

The exhibition’s title comes from an ancient Chinese poem from the Tao Te Ching written by Lao Tzu.

It refers to the manner in which we surround our lives with expectations, precious concepts and our ego.  And how if we can see through these obstacles we build ourselves we’re left with the ‘raw silk and uncut wood’.

Need little,
want less.
Forget the rules.
Be untroubled.
(Excerpt, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin)

Christopher Duncan is a contemporary craft practitioner who specialises in hand weaving. Duncan began weaving in 2012 after leaving behind a career in the fashion industry. As an autodidact he began teaching himself through gifted looms and materials eventually creating his own library of weaving apparatus, knowledge, style and technique.

12 June to 15 July 2017

Born in Auckland in 1961, Peter Gibson Smith graduated from Auckland’s School of Fine Arts in 1983. His practice since then has drawn from a vast frame of art historical and literary references, exploring the production and reproduction of images and various modern and older mediums. In this exhibition at Uxbridge Showcase, Gibson Smith presents some of his multi-faceted, three-dimensional figures made from computer-generated, geometrically composed paper forms.

Read the Artist Interview with Peter Gibson Smith.

Ramon Robertson’s Form Farm is the first outdoor sculpture hosted by Malcolm Smith Gallery.

March to June 2017

Recently on display at NZ Sculpture OnShore 2016, Form Farm continues Ramon Robertson’s engagement with aspects of architecture and urbanisation.  Robertson intends to draw references from interior and exterior physical and visual space, commenting on the human condition and behaviour in the environment.

Ramon Robertson has been working as an artist in Auckland, New Zealand since arriving there in October 2011. Prior to this he lived and worked in Glasgow, Scotland where he also worked as an artist, designer and tertiary lecturer.

Cumulative Installation from 4 March, Exhibition on display until 30 April

Straight to the Point features a series of new original artworks by Blake Beckford that experiment with the relationships between depth, space, colour and composition.

23 January – 25 February 2017

An imaginative and colourful exhibition featuring the work of twenty of New Zealand’s best-known illustrators, including Robyn Belton (The Teddy Bear’s Promise), Lynley Dodd (Hairy MacLary), Phoebe Morris (First to the Top), Sandra Morris (A New Zealand Nature Journal), Trevor Pye (Grandma McGarvey’s Christmas) and many more!