Art New Zealand

I first met Cheryll Sotheran in 1978 during rehearsals for The Beaux’ Stratagem, a University of Auckland Theatre Workshop production directed by Mervyn Thompson. (I was the production designer.) Cheryll, already known for her impressive performances

Francis Pound died after a long illness on Sunday 15 October last year. His funeral at St Matthew-in-the-City, with eulogies, remembrances and readings from his brothers and friends, was a most moving occasion. A lot of people came, from many differe

Whenua Fonua ‘Enua Malcolm Smith Gallery 6 November–2 December IOANA GORDON-SMITH When I think of Benjamin Work’s practice, the richness of Tongan visual language comes to mind. The artist has derived from artefacts a rich taxonomy of patterns that

Over the last 26 years, the Pacific Sisters have used their sisterhood to claim alternative futures, presents and pasts, by reimagining the spaces they inhabit. The worlds they created in warehouses, nightclubs, festivals and art museums was anything

In January, in a crowded Christchurch Art Gallery auditorium, Jacqueline Fahey, celebrated feminist painter and author, known for her forthright, outspoken take on life and art, left the audience spellbound with candid flashes of brilliance. Somethin

Selina Foote’s take on painting is a singular one. Her methodology may borrow directly from historic works, but it skews the relationship between these works and her own in unexpected ways. Her geometric abstractions utilise the paintings of others a

The ‘journey’, as an observing layman might put it, begins with a notebook, a spiral-bound ‘visual diary’. There are shelves of them in Barry Cleavin’s studio. He may go through one in a couple of weeks, or over months or days, but what happens with

Hiking in New Zealand is not dissimilar to walking the Camino Real in northern Spain. With the monotony of physical exertion amidst startling scenery, it can resolve itself into a pilgrimage, which, if completed at the right stage of life, in the rig

The koru works of Gordon Walters were first exhibited in 1966 at New Vision Gallery in Auckland. For many, these remain his signature pieces. Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s extensive Gordon Walters: New Vision counters this view, placing the artist fir

Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery opened in 2014 in an award-winning custom-made building designed by Mitchell & Stout Architects. Since then, it has established itself as a sought-out destination in the art itineraries of its local community and

What is it to be young? And why is it that, bringing together representatives of ‘a new generation of artists’, the Adam Art Gallery’s exhibition The Tomorrow People trespassed upon such a vast range of other themes? From youth, to colonialism and in

Karawai Street, Ruakaka, could have been the setting for a New Zealand adaptation of Edward Scissorhands. The low brick bungalows, set in close proximity to the street and to each other, have knee-high fences that offer no privacy, shelter nor contai

In August 1964 Colin McCahon resigned from his position as Keeper and Deputy Director at the Auckland City Art Gallery to become Lecturer in painting at the Elam School of Fine Arts. Over the next seven years he was an influential and inspirational t

Strangers Arrive: Emigrés and the Arts in New Zealand, 1930–1980 by Leonard Bell Auckland University Press, Auckland 2017  It was a privilege last November to be amongst the crush at the launch of Leonard Bell’s Strangers Arrive: Emigrés and the Art