Exhibitions
From Tauranga Art Gallery
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[edit] Petals
COMING SOON
PETALS Contemporary male New Zealand artists
The tradition of flower painting in New Zealand dates back to European settlement. Works were painted for both decorative and scientific reasons. This exhibition's focus is on the still life / gardens as a subject, and each work has been executed by a male artist.
Artists include Bruce Irwin, Graham Crow, Karl Maughan, Trevor Pye, Barry Dabb and Philip Trusttum.
To coincide with Bayley's Garden and Artfest 10 - 16 November.
From 27 September
[edit] Teaching Aids
COMING SOON
TEACHING AIDS Julia Morison
Teaching Aids is a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the 'flower' as a metaphor for growth. Morison's use of prosaic cleaning tools such as floor mops, equipment traditionally used by women, to produce flamboyant sunflower-like sculptures, is a satirical look at the traditional use of flowers as exemplary subjects for art, especially women artists.
To coincide with Bayley's Garden and Artfest 10 - 16 November.
From 4 October
[edit] Stopover
COMING SOON
STOPOVER Bruce Connew
STOPOVER is a book and photographic essay on Indian-Fijian migration.
For generations, the descendants of early indentured Indian migrants brought to Fiji between 1879 and 1916 to cut sugar cane on harsh five-year contracts, have made their homes in Fiji. Many still eek a living from leased cane fields. However, today Indian-Fijians who third, fourth and fifth generation Fijians, are forbidden to own land in Fiji or, it seems, to have any say in the running of their country, now realise their future lies beyond the country of their birth.
From 11 October
[edit] Tony Lane A Survey
FROM AONGATETE: Tony Lane - A Survey Tony Lane has a passion for the language of painting - historical and contemporary, NZ-based and international.
Lane draws inspiration from the cultural landscape of an old-world Europe, with a style that has been influenced by a diverse range of artists from 17th century Spanish still life painters, Mexican retablo artists, Italian Primitives and 20th century artists such as De Chirico, Giacometti, Cucchi and McCahon.
Lane's work appears iconographic with the use of motifs; symbols such as the veil or the wound; his use of gold leaf, along with his representations of elements such as air, smoke and water. Often his frames are painted or gilded, transforming the painting into icon-like objects. Severed limbs, a motif that he uses frequently, are symbols of an absent body, or a personification of a missing person.
There is a quality to Lane's work that is neither entirely of the South Pacific, nor European, but a marriage of the two. His images speak their own unique metaphorical language.
Tony Lane was born in Katikati in 1949, graduating from the University of Auckland's School of Fine Arts in 1970. Since then he has exhibited extensively in New Zealand and internationally, including 'Practical Meta-Physics' a survey of Lane's paintings from 1988 to 2006, at City Gallery, Wellington in 2006. His work is in many public and private collections in New Zealand, Europe and the USA.
Exhibition from Sat 26th Jul 2008 - Sun 28th Sep 2008
[edit] Here John Roy
HERE John Roy
A plague of small rabbits is running riot on the ground floor of the Gallery.
The rabbits are the work of Tauranga artist, John Roy, and will form part of a solo exhibition Roy is preparing to hold in Wellington at the end of the year. Tauranga gets the first glimpse.
For this exhibition Roy wanted an undesignated gallery space that was on the periphery, out of immediate site, so has chosen the walls adjacent to the lift and kitchen.
“Infestations usually start in a small corner off to one side, and kitchens and dark recesses are synonymous with hidden menaces that skulk in corners,” he says. “Only the vigilant observer will see what is lurking on the periphery both physically and metaphorically – much like the material used on the edges of art such as clay. Some people will miss it altogether both as a point and an artwork due to it being outside a designated gallery space.”
Much of Roy’s work revolves around iconic forms that bring with them a preconceived meaning, but that allow him to introduce his own ideas and thoughts that challenge other people’s perception of the object in a subtle way.
“Rabbits are cute and cuddly, and easily identifiable to people – but they are pests to some people.”
Roy’s use of pastel colours for the rabbits adds to the allusion. Even the white rabbits hide a subtle tinge of green, much like mould growing on cement.
John Roy is a nationally recognised contemporary artist.
He has lived in Tauranga much of his adult life, graduating from Wanganui Polytechnic with a fine arts degree majoring in ceramics in 1997, and has continued to work with ceramics, winning numerous awards for his sculptures. For several years his work has made it to the finals list of the annual Wallace Awards. He has pieces in the James Wallace Arts Trust Collection and the Auckland War Memorial Museum. In 2007 he was commissioned by Creative New Zealand to produce the eight trophies for the Creative Places Awards.
Tue 05 Aug 2008
[edit] A Surrealist Odyssey
A Surrealist Odyssey is an extensive survey exhibition of Edward Bullmore, considered to be one of New Zealand’s earliest Surrealist visual artists.
Surrealism is a visual ‘stream of consciousness’ where the real world is filtered through the artist’s subconscious, manifesting into images that are often ambiguous and have different interpretations for viewers. Largely a Western European style, Surrealism has never been widely accepted in New Zealand, although it was in Australia.
Bullmore challenged the constraints of the New Zealand’s predominately nationalist art canon of the time, with his Surrealist fusion of the New Zealand landscape and the human form, and it was not until he traveled to Europe and England that he achieved success as an artist.
Bullmore taught to support his art career. His first teaching post was in Tauranga Boys' College in the late 1950s, during which time he held his first solo exhibition as guest artist of the Tauranga Art Society. Many of the works from this exhibition have since remained in local collections and are included in A Surrealist Odyssey.
Bullmore spent the next decade in Europe where he enjoyed exhibition success in several private and public British galleries. Film director Stanley Kubrick purchased two of his works, one of which appears in the cult movie, ‘A Clockwork Orange’. However he grew homesick, returning in 1969 to teach in Rotorua until his death in 1978, aged only 45.
In 2006, his widow Jacqueline, gifted a large collection of his works to the Tauranga Art Gallery in memory of the time he spent in Tauranga as a teacher and emerging artist.
Although Bullmore’s work was well received in Britain it has gained little attention in New Zealand; Surrealism has not traditionally been included in New Zealand’s art history. A Surrealist Odyssey seeks to redress the neglect of this significant New Zealand painter and sculptor.
Exhibition from 15 June - 21 September
[edit] Big Red
BIG RED: Altering people’s perspective by creating something they can’t ignore is the intention behind sculptor Gaye Jurisich’s works.
It would be impossible to ignore BIG RED, a visual bombardment of shimmering red streamers suspended from the Atrium ceiling that rustle in the draft from the opening door; a total transformation of the cavernous white Atrium space.
Her use of red en-masse is overwhelming and designed to trigger the raft of emotions and responses that come with it. Blood. Hell-fire and brimstone. Passion. Love.
People are meant to interact with BIG RED. Not only will their visual senses be stimulated from the outside but those willing to walk inside it and be absorbed into the moving sea of red, will be confronted with a totally different emotion; for some claustrophobia, for others, maybe courage.
Jurisich creates site-specific sculptures using everyday utilitarian materials, often giving them a temporary reprieve from the rubbish; anything she can source in bulk. Materials that on their own are insignificant, but undergo a complete transformation when used en-masse. Things like drawing pins, leis, even cottonbuds. In BIG RED’s case, the plastic used to tie rubbish bags. Over 87.8 kilometres of it to be precise, made into 5,856 15m-long streamers.
Exhibition from 7 May until 31st October
To see information regarding previous exhibitions at the Tauranga Art Gallery please visit Previous Exhibitions
Categories: Exhibition | 2008 | Artist | Paintings | Surrealism | Sculpture | Installation