Exhibitions

Exhibitions 2020

Franklin Arts Centre 25 February - 16 March.
Arthaus Gallery 17 June - 5 July.
Lake House Arts 2 - 14 August.
Depot Artspace 15 August - 2 September.
Studio One - Toi Tu - 29 October - 26 November.

All of this years exhibitions are called Urban Tapa or Industrial Tapa. What makes this work "tapa"? My definition is the traditional tapa material is layers of bark beaten to a rough paper like thickness. It is then imprinted with reoccurring motifs using natural pigments. In a similar way my materials are created by layering up the paint and it is treated roughly with chisels and combustion to receive their paint skin form. They have their motifs built into them and the natural pigment of rust from the metal mold is pulled directly into the paint. The motifs present themselves in the form of shapes such as the reoccurring pattern in car tyres representing travel. Vertically this can mean travelling in ascension, horizontally it can point to travelling in time or physical journeys. Likewise the corrugations in some of the skins repeat themselves and point to the New Zealand aesthetic of corrugated iron used in houses or fencing. Read this way the paintings can refer to shelter and security. The paintings may also have images of industrial signs such as "this way up" stickers. These are seen everywhere and are a motif pointing in a direction or as a sign of transcendence. The skins can also be large in the form of casts from 44 gallon drums which can represent a motif for commerce or industrial pollution in the environment. These are just some of the motifs that will be used in the paintings shown this year.

Franklin Arts Centre Community Gallery