Gallery
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
If one is not limited by an idea and instead paints to further their understanding of visual principles, then each painting is infinitely more meaningful. Drawing is the heavy reserve that says nothing, but through experience can reveal everything.
This solo exhibition by Auckland artist Reece King explores the universal principles of nature through experimentations in form and perception. While encounters in nature are the beginning point, once started, the painting ultimately finds itself and creates its own meaning for viewers to contemplate.
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
The only contemporary art prize in Aotearoa New Zealand with ecology at its core. With a total prize pool of $8,300 the winning artworks will be intelligent and innovative responses to ecology in the field of contemporary art.
Judged by Ane Tonga
Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Awards:
First Place: Kohl Tyler-Dunshea
Second Place: Wendy Hannah
Merit Award: Bev Goodwin and Jeff Thomson
Merit Award: Roma Anderson
People’s Choice Award: Arielle Walker
Image: Kohl Tyler-Dunshea, Offerings (2017). First Place, 2017
2017 finalists:
Arielle Walker, Bev Goodwin and Jeff Thomson, Caroline Powley, Celeste Sterling, Cora-Allan Wickliffe, Dawn Johnstone, Hanna Shim, Hayley Nieuwoudt, Janna Isbey, Jennie De Groot, Jessica Kate Tweed, Jessica Pearless, Katy Metcalf, Kohl Tyler-Dunshea, Lee Brogan, Lucy Pierpoint, Michael Prosee, Mo Stewart, Reece King, Rick Allender, Roma Anderson, Rozana Lee, Sophie Foster, Suzette van Dorsser and Wendy Hannah
Thank you for support from Howick Local Board, Turanga Creek Wines and Rice Family Partnership
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.
As part of Auckland Festival of Photography
1 May to 3 June 2017
Bright Light, Soft Launch brings together emerging and established artists exploring representations of the figure through image making.
The artists featured take a poetic and nuanced approach to portrait photography, teasing out characters and personas and presenting their subjects in a kaleidoscope of ways. Some intend to blur and muddle typical perceptions; others mix stereotypes and narratives with nostalgia and tradition. All present a different way of contemplating how the figure can be captured through a lens.
Jenna Baydee, Kevin Capon, Liyen Chong, Di ffrench, Russ Flatt, Solomon Mortimer, Stephanie O’Connor, Mish O’Neill, Richard Orjis, Patrick Pound, Yvonne Todd, Tia Ranginui, Ashlin Rawson
Image: Russ Flatt, When I Say Jump (2015). Courtesy of the Wallace Arts Trust.
1 May to 3 June 2017
Priscilla Hunter is known for her exquisitely detailed fabric sculptures of exotic flora – including masterfully executed anthurium, rubber plants and various cacti.
Her explorations of botany and haberdashery have developed since her first showing at Uxbridge three years ago. Here, she presents her cacti as larger manifestations that have sprung from their terracotta planters, onto the floor and up the walls.
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.
Seven Non-Figurative Auckland Painters
6 March to 22 April 2017
Exhibition Talk / Saturday 11 March / 2.00PM
Johl Dwyer, Nicola Holden, Sara Hughes, Hugo Koha Lindsay, Emma McIntyre, Diane Scott, Glen Snow
Curated by Julian McKinnon
Painting’s resilience as an art form can be attributed to many factors. There is its ease of transportation, its relatively low production costs, and its universal recognition as ‘art’. There is also its enduring value as a commodity, its ability to store culture, and to serve as a vehicle for aesthetic value. Perhaps more than any of these factors – those singled out by academics and theoreticians – is the continued fascination it holds for those that work with it. Its histories are rich and varied, running in parallel to the development of human civilisation. Its techniques are manifold, its possibilities endless. Yet it is the intoxicating sensory experience of delving into the studio, the world of pigments, brushes, and tools, which holds the greatest appeal to those enamoured with the discipline.
Image: Johl Dwyer, Vita, 2017, cedar, resin, and enamel. Courtesy the artist and Tim Melville Gallery. Photo: Kallan MacLeod
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.
Exhibition Opening Saturday 21 January 2017, 2:30PM
Susan Christie, Leticia Durant, Julia Holderness, Theresa Waugh and Eloise Worrall-Bader
New and unpredictable visual connections emerge through the amalgamation of multiple artists and various works. As pottery and painting, photography and drawing are arranged in relation to each other, we find patterns, harmonies and dissonances. The artworks extend into space and into each other. Free entry. Artworks affordably priced for sale.
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!
23 January – 25 February 2017
Exhibition Opening Saturday 21 January, 2:30PM
Kushana Bush, Jon Carapiet, Quishile Charan, Lok Chitrakar, Tessa Laird, Lorene Taurerewa, Sam Thomas and Shurti Yatri
With the radical break of abstract art in the 20th Century, how do contemporary artists embrace the idea of storytelling? How do they employ narrative to explore history and identity, among other trenchant themes? For these artists, storytelling does not always require plots, characters or settings; rather, narrative potential lies in everyday objects and materials, and their embedded cultural associations. In projects created through extensive research, the artists in A Turn of the Wheel uncover layers of meaning, turning to individual experience as a means of sharing stories, both real and fictional.
7 November 2016 – 14 January 2017
Exhibition Opening
Saturday 5 November, 2:30PM
Isobel Thom is an artist best known for her experimental geometries in painting and ceramics. More recently, the artist has been attempting ‘the complete artwork’, the design and construction of her own studio. From the kitchen sink to the rocket stove, tile cladding to teapots, Isobel Thom has been creating objects to live with.
Curated by Balamohan Shingade
Curator’s Tour—free
Thursday 24 November, 6:30PM
12 September – 22 October 2016
Artists: Matthew Cowan, Xin Cheng with Chris Berthelsen, Philippa Emery, Bernardo Oyarzún, Brydee Rood, Harpreet Singh and Sam Thomas.
Curated by Balamohan Shingade
The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to go sharper. – W.B. Yeats
Sacred Economies draws our attention to how experiences of the sacred manifest through social transactions. It is interested in how ritualistic social movements give life to events that can transform or transcend our ordinary ways of thinking about and participating in the world. How do transactions of forms like poetry or folklore, which hold little monetary value, create an economy of ‘sacred’ moments? How do networks of ritualized action hold the potential to create moments which are more than the sum of their parts? What resemblance do the creative arts hold to the industries of spiritual and religious experiences? For these artists, sacredness and everyday magic is about transitioning to a more connected way of being in this world through gift economies, ritual exchange and the restoration of the commons.
Image: Matthew Cowan, The Dance of the Tractor & the Chocoł, 2008.
Exhibition of Finalists 29 July – 27 August 2016
Judged by Jon Bywater
Finalists: Cristina Beth, Anthony Clark, Karen Danes, Cushla Donaldson, Sonja Drake, Dorothy Giam, Neala Glass, Katy Gundesen, Anna Hayes, Niki Simpkin Hill, Thomas Lawley, Shaun Lee, Wendy Leung, Josh Lotz-Keegan, Steve Lovett, Zenica Mann, Dreama McFadyen with Marc and Psalm McFadyen, Emma McLellan, Marie-Louise Myburgh, Penny Otto, Jasper Owen, Emily Parr, Kristin Peren, Isabella Rasch, Jodie Salmond, Donna Turtle Sarten with Bernie Harfleet, A.D. Schierning, Huda Shakarchi, Katie Theunissen, Sam Thomas, Clovis Viscoe, Rainer Westeon with Claudia Dunes, and Alvin Xiong.
The only contemporary art prize in Aotearoa New Zealand with ecology at its core. Artists are 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 $8,300 the winning artworks will be intelligent and innovative responses to ecology in the field of contemporary art.
1st Place: Emily Parr
2nd Place: Cushla Donaldson
Merit Awards: Katie Theunissen & Katy Gundesen
People’s Choice Award: Sonja Drake
Image: Katie Theunissen, The Littoral Zone, 2016.
25 – 29 May 2016
Auckland Art Fair
The Cloud on Auckland’s Queen’s Wharf
Artists: Philippa Emery, Samer Hatam, Julia Teale, Sam Thomas
Four emerging artists have been invited by Malcolm Smith Gallery to create a unique series of work for this year’s Auckland Art Fair. The title, Impressions, means to be marked, moved or stamped by something. It is also a play on the ‘artist’s impressions’ of an architectural draft, which are often commissioned to give a visual tracing of concepts and objects that cannot be seen otherwise, whether because they are too big, too small, in the past, in the future, fictional, or abstract. This series of artworks is about how the Gallery’s new architecture impresses itself on the artists, and in turn, how the artists respond to the new building and its surroundings. Visit the Ngatahi Editions and Publications stand at the Auckland Art Fair to see these artworks in the flesh.
Fore more information, visit www.artfair.co.nz
Image: Philippa Emery, Impressions 1, 2016.
13 June – 16 July 2016
Artists: Katrina Beekhuis, Claudia Dunes, Richard Frater, Samer Hatam, John Ward Knox, Jeremy Leatinu’u, Shannon Novak, Jeena Shin, Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, Julia Teale
Curated by Balamohan Shingade
Malcolm Smith Gallery is named after the late local architect, community stalwart and founding member of UXBRIDGE in 1981. Architects envisage compelling futures and enjoy a particularly social role. It may even be said that theirs is an intrinsically social art form. Malcolm Smith envisaged a centre for his hometown that would be a beacon for the art and ideas of their day. From the beginning, and even until his passing in 2010, Smith made a priority of good architecture, and was involved in recommending building developments for UXBRIDGE. Once any alteration or improvement was accepted, Smith was always to be found contributing to its execution, from erecting the first crèche fence to the interior painting of the theatre. The UXBRIDGE complex, as it stood before the commencement of the redevelopment last year, reflected Smith’s involvement in every room of every building.
With a nod to its namesake, Soft Architecture brings together various artists whose works comprise of architectural references. The focus, here, is not on architects or buildings; instead, the exhibition brings together artists whose use of, and for architecture, is rather subtle. Some artists bring us to a discreet awareness of the spatio-temporal properties inherent in a site, whereas others explore the social missions of our built environments.Soft Architecture is concerned with those artworks which are deceptive in their restraint, but where apparent simplicity or lightness of touch belies the works’ rigour. The term ‘soft’ is expansive in its meaning. It describes material qualities, defines strategies of persuasion, and evokes character traits. Through the exhibition Soft Architecture, Malcolm Smith Gallery can be understood as a soft space, because its approach is to yield readily to touch; a smooth or pliable space that is responsive to wider contexts.
Image: Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, Subtle Field 1, 2014.
8 October to 25 November 2018
In Living History, Wellington artist Richard Stratton presents a series of new work that continues his interest in bringing together ceramic decoration and production techniques, art histories and social narratives.
This exhibition explores how Stratton’s well known, intricate teapots and figurative representations have evolved into enigmatic, sculptural forms.
Developed and toured by
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Make a Sew-Free Shopping Bag
Bring in an old t-shirt and learn how to create a shopping bag and reduce the amount of plastic you are using!
17 to 20 JUL, Daily 12.00PM to 1.00PM
Judge’s Tour with Paul Brobbel
Join us for a tour of the Estuary Art and Ecology Prize 2018 with this year’s judge, Paul Brobbel.
SUN 8 JUL, 11.30AM
Bright Ideas : The Estuary Sessions
During the Estuary Art and Ecology Prize, we will be focusing on people who are using art and social action to bring about environmental change.
18 JUL and 15 AUG, 10.00AM
MALCOLM SMITH GALLERY
4 February to 17 March 2019
Opening Saturday 2 February, 2.30PM
This exhibition by Areez Katki displays 29 new works by the artist, developed over the past eight months while he was living and working in India. The exhibition focuses on Katki’s personal heritage, specifically in relation to Zoroastrianism and the Parsi community to which his family belongs. Through his needlework based craft practice, Katki explores third-wave diaspora and the survival of Zoroastrianism, alongside his own revelations and responses to this now-powerful minority in Mumbai.
Areez has been very generous and allowed his Journal extracts to be available to interested visitors through the link below.
Join 2017 Judge Ane Tonga for an insight into this year’s Awards including commentary on the Award Winners. Ane Tonga is an artist and curator. Currently, she is the Lead Exhibitions Curator at Rotorua Museum Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa.
THUR 15 JUN, 6PM Malcolm Smith Gallery
Bird Illustration Workshop
Learn about the bird species in the Tamaki Estuary and learn to use pen and watercolour wash to create beautiful illustrations with multi-award winning artist Ginette Wang. Ginette Wang is a multi- award winning New Zealand watercolour artist, illustrator, published author and teacher, residing in Auckland.
SAT 17 JUN, 1PM to 4PM $69 incl. materials, Book via [email protected]
Estuary Clean-Up
Join us for a clean-up of the Tamaki Estuary with the Tamaki Estuary Protection Society. The heavily urbanised area surrounding the Estuary continues to seriously damage and endanger this unique and vital catchment. Continuing from the success of last year’s clean up; in 2017 we will again focus on the Panmure Basin where plastics continue to litter the environment and threaten its wildlife. Thanks to support from local businesses in and around Panmure Basin for supporting this initiative. All materials supplied. Please wear closed footwear or gumboots.
SAT 24 JUN, 11AM to 2PM Panmure Lagoon Sailing Club
Photography Symposium
Young photographers are invited to a special evening event featuring guest speakers and product demonstrations to inspire your photographic practice. Suitable for students aged 15 to 20 years old. Free to attend.
THUR 1 JUN, 5PM to 7PM
Light, No Camera, Action
Explore analogue photography and create a photogram style print using just light and time. Suitable for children aged 5 to 10 years old. Free to attend, register via [email protected]. Limited to 15 participants.
THUR 4 MAY, 4PM to 5PM
Somatic Workshop
Clare Luiten and Xin Cheng invite you to come for a special exploration of the spaces and objects in Sacred Economies, and the surrounding environment, with your whole body (not just your eyes) as the sensing, feeling, responding instrument.
THU 22 SEP, 6:30PM—Free
Poetry Reading
As part of Artweek Auckland, we bring together poets and artists in this inaugural poetry reading. Each poet will write and present that a piece that responds to the work of one of the artists in the exhibition.
Poets: Melanie Rands, Erena Johnson, Makyla Curtis, Chris Tse, Richard von Sturmer, Ya-Wen Ho, Ruby Porter
SAT 13 OCT, 6:30PM—Free
Botanical Illustration Workshop
Learn about the threatened plant species in the Tamaki Estuary and learn to draw them at the same time! This unique workshop combines art and ecology in celebration of this year’s 10th Anniversary of the Estuary Art Awards. Develop your observation-based drawing and fine art techniques and capture the beauty of our natural world.
Tutor: Sandra Morris (botanical illustrator)
SAT 6 AUG, 10:00AM – 2:00PM
$49 (Materials Included)
Judge’s Tour with Jon Bywater
We are fortunate to have Jon Bywater as judge for the Estuary Art Awards 10th Anniversary. Join us for a special afternoon to hear Bywater speak about the artworks selected for the exhibition of finalists.
Jon Bywater is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s foremost contemporary art critics. His writing on art and music has appeared in national publications including Art New Zealand, Landfall, The Listener and Reading Room, and in British and American periodicals such as Afterall, Artforum, e-Flux, Frieze, Mute and Wire, as well as numerous monographs and catalogues. In the past ten years, he was curator of the inaugural Arts Foundation New Generation Award, has served twice as a Walters Prize juror, and as judge of the National Contemporary Art Award hosted by Waikato Museum.
SAT 13 AUG, 12:00PM
$5 General Admission
Free for Friends of Malcolm Smith Gallery
Tamaki Estuary Clean Up
Let’s restore the quality of our environment! Join us to clean-up the Tamaki Estuary with the Tamaki Estuary Protection Society. This vital water-body is an incubator for nearly 400 plant species, some of which are threatened due in part to debris. This year, we will focus on the Panmure Basin, where plastics have come in as a result of the Estuary’s tidal flows. Spread the word and inspire others to protect our waterways!
All materials supplied. Please wear closed footwear or gumboots.
SAT 20 AUG, 12:00PM – 4:00PM
Panmure Lagoon Sailing Club
Artists in Conversation
With Claudia Dunes & Jeremy Leatinu’u
Join us for the opportunity to engage with a few of the artists of Soft Architecture, the inaugural exhibition of Malcolm Smith Gallery. Learn about the artwork’s processes and ideas, listen to the artists talk about their backgrounds, and explore the exhibition with insider insight. The artists will be in conversation with the curator to talk about their work, followed by a Q&A with the audience.
SAT 9 July, 12:00PM
$5 General Admission, free for Friends of Malcolm Smith Gallery
Future Cities
Build a cardboard city! Will you build up to create density or build out to create urban sprawl? This participatory activity responds to the Auckland housing crisis and the theme of Soft Architecture. Join us to create a cardboard city that is responsive, fluid and playful. This event is coordinated by Briana Woolliams (Volunteer Curatorial Assistant, 2016).
SAT 11 June – SAT 25 June
8+ years. All materials provided.
Join us for a kōrero in the Gallery Café led by exhibiting artist Coral Noel Yang and Centre Director Paul Brobbel. Our conversation will be informed by the themes explored in Tokimeku, currently exhibiting in the Malcolm Smith Gallery. This is a great opportunity for artists, art lovers and the artistically curious alike to engage with contemporary art in an open and friendly environment.
All are welcome.
Tuesday 21st May, 2 – 3pm at the Gallery Café
Complementary coffee/tea are included in your ticket.
Bookings are essential. To secure your spot, please book through our website.
Tokimeku
‘Tokimeku’ (ときめく) is a Japanese word that beautifully captures the sensation of a throbbing, fluttering, and palpitating heart—a visceral response to the dance of anticipation. This concept serves as the inspiration for Coral Noel Yang latest collection of expressive abstract works. Influenced by her immersive experience at Tamagawa Hot Spring, a secluded mountain healing site in her mother’s hometown, Akita, Japan, these artworks vividly reflect the essence of her journey, where the heartbeat of nature resonates in captivating visual expressions.
As Coral delves into the memories of her travels, central themes of wonder, awakening, connection, and rebirth crystallise within this collection. A poignant narrative thread weaves through her heartfelt reunion with family after a period of Covid-induced separation, alongside tales of healing and the therapeutic energy found in Tamagawa. Coral’s purpose is to imbue her works with the vitality and sense of belonging she absorbed from this transformative journey.
About the Artist
Coral Noel Yang, an Auckland-based contemporary painter, specializes in abstract and floral art using acrylic, blending Soak-Stain techniques with Asian water-ink traditions. Her vibrant and layered works exude luminous hues and expressive marks, drawing inspiration from Aotearoa’s landscapes and florals, her 15 years of global filmmaking experience, and her Chinese-Japanese heritage. Enthralled by the unpredictable beauty of fluidity, she navigates between intuitive material play and meticulous design, crafting layers adorned with water marks, organic shapes, and whimsical brushstrokes. Her paintings capture nature’s essence intertwined with human emotions, evoking a profound sense of wonder and belonging, resonating both locally and internationally. Since 2021, Coral has held solo exhibitions in Auckland, notably including Unfurling (2023) and Tokimeku (2024). Additionally, she is invited to showcase her work at both The Auckland Art Show 2024 and Art in the Park 2024. In 2023, she received the John Wells award at the Emerging Artist Awards of Upstairs Gallery and was a finalist at Craigs Aspiring Art Prize in 2024.
Instagram link: @coralnoelyangart
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| Artist Kōrero with Coral Noel Yang | $10.00 |
Join us in the Gallery Café for a casual yet informative conversation over tea and coffee with exhibiting artist Eve Boermans and centre director Paul Brobbel.
Eve and Paul will lead a conversation for artists and art lovers looking at the themes explored in the exhibition Threads alongside insights into Eve’s wider practice.
Wednesday 1 May, 2 – 3pm, Gallery Café
Bookings essential: $10 for coffee/tea/scone and conversation.
Threads
Threads is an exploration of metaphorical threads in time – observing memories and recognising the subsequent evocations from these moments; emotions, sounds, smells, light. Small, unfinished paintings are positioned carefully on Uxbridge’s concourse wall and connected by material threads. Although unfinished, these paintings feel more human, more natural, more intriguing. Each canvas piques the viewer’s interest, containing different subject matter from piece to piece. Locating the work in a transitional space enhances the potential for interpretation. The viewer can imagine their own conclusions for each piece, whether it be material or emotional.
Threads is an invitation, an offering to the viewer, for connection, for recollection, for feeling.
About the artist
Eve Boermans is an East Auckland-based artist and student at Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland. Working in a variety of disciplines including dramatic and literary arts, her artistic work is currently focused on painting and installation. Boerman’s work has been seen locally in exhibitions such as the Focus Exhibition (2022). She was a finalist in the Wallace Art Awards (2022).
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Join emerging artist, Estelle Ruijne, and Visual Arts Coordinator, Zoë May, for an afternoon of conversation on Estelle’s poetry. We’ll be exploring themes also found in her debut exhibition, Metamorphōsis, Estelle will also walk us through poems and concepts that inspired her while creating this body of work.
Estelle’s poetry is readily available to read alongside her exhibition at UXBRIDGE or you can click here to read Estelle’s poetry in your own time.
This event is free and open to everyone, we only ask that you RSVP with your name to [email protected] so we can ensure there are enough resources.
About the exhibition
Metamorphōsis is a collection of paintings that explore the confusion, discomfort and uncertainty that often comes with growing up.
Her figures peel at their skin, their spines sprout wings, or they slowly emerge from unravelling cocoons, all shedding layers that reveal something entirely new has grown beneath the surface. In each of them, a metamorphosis has taken place. The unwitting characters in Ovid’s Metamorphosis experience dramatic transformations into plants, animals and other half-human creatures as a way of being given new life. In much the same way, Ruijne uses her art to visualise the invisible metamorphosis she and her friends have been undergoing.
Despite their often fantastical imagery, her expressive artworks are grounded by a sense of relatability. There is a permeable tension between the fear of and hope for change, of the discomfort in the familiar and the allure of the unfamiliar. Distress and hesitancy battle to overcome the yearning for something more that shines through the overarching turmoil. It is this feeling of pressure, of push and pull, that deeply marks the transitory period into adulthood. Metamorphōsis reminds all of us that change is inevitable, regardless of how hard we fight it.
About the artist
Estelle Ruijne is an artist and poet who explores the transformative and fluid nature of the human experience. Currently a student at Howick College, she plans to pursue a Bachelor of Visual Art double majoring in Painting, Printmaking and Drawing, and Communication Design at AUT after completing her secondary studies. Estelle is committed to adapting and evolving these concepts through further exhibitions. Metamorphōsis is her debut exhibition.
To celebrate the closing of her latest exhibition, join artist Karen Sewell on Saturday 15 February from 1pm in the Malcolm Smith Gallery for a talk and tour of Celestial Numinance.
This event is free to attend. To reserve you spot, please RSVP with your name to [email protected]
For more information about Celestial Numinance, click here.
About the artist
Karen Sewell is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau whose impressive installations commonly incorporate a combination of sculpture, photography, painting, sound, scent and light. Working within the realm of the numinous, her practise explores the intersection of art and spirituality. Sewell holds a Master of Fine Arts (with Honours) in 2016 from Whitecliffe, College of Arts and Design.
Her work has featured in exhibitions in Aotearoa and internationally. She received the Waitakere Trust Art Awards’ Premier Award in 2011, was an award winner in the 2024 Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Awards, and in 2022 Luminary I Luminare was exhibited in the biennial exhibition, Personal Structures, held in Venice.
