Suture Self – Group Show

23rd AUGUST – 2nd SEPTEMBER, 2011

Curated by Victoria Bell and featuring works by Jenny Bain, Michele Beevors, Victoria Bell, Neil Emmerson, Tenille Lategan, Simone Montgomery & Karen Taiaroa.

Victoria Bell

Suture self is an exhibition featuring the work of staff, recent graduates and a current master’s student from the Dunedin school of art. Curated by Victoria Bell, Suture self, features works , which are stitch based and examine the relationship between art and medicine, with stitch and fabric providing the literal thread entwining the two together.

A highlight of the exhibition was Michele Beevors’ exquisite the anatomy lesson: horse and rider, after Stubbs (2005-2011). Beevors has created two stunningly beautiful knitted sculptures of the skeletal remains of a human and an upright skeleton of a horse leaning down as though it were to crush the remains of the human body below. The anatomy lesson: Horse and rider, after Stubbs examines the relationship between death and knitting. Focusing upon the way in which knitting protects and formulated around the human experience with textiles, from being wrapped in cloth as a new born baby to being encased with cloth upon death. The works contain an element of fragility, as though these dry white bones have been reassembled in a mourning ritual.

Jenny Bain (left) Michelle Beevors (right)

Containing the same unnerving dynamism one would liken to a snake is Simone Montgomery’s 101 reasons to shop (2010). As though it were silently slithers across the gallery space, Montgomery’s 101 reasons to shop captures the viewer’s gaze into a hypnotic constriction. Consisting of unremarkable materials such as recycled plastic bags and clear plastic, Montgomery has transformed the seemingly ordinary into an incredibly beautiful, transparent and textural sculpture. Appearing almost like a spinal cord or perhaps a treacherous snake lulling it’s victim into a false sense of security, before crippling the compulsive purchaser in financial burden. In terms of materiality the exaggerated familiarity of 101 reasons to shop consolidates the divide between body and fabric and body and form. Montgomery tactfully probes a deeper consciousness, by examining both the environmental strain and ethical implications our consumerist driven society breeds.

Neil Emmerson

Neil Emmerson’s Gay on demand works from the glass closet series(2009) comprises of a wardrobe filled with different ‘gender’ identities. Emmerson’s works highlight the way in which we perform our identities partially through the act of dressing. Gay on demand consisted of a range of almost apocalyptic suits arranged on make shift metal frame. It is though Emmerson intended for the viewer to experience the act of trying on these different suits to endow themselves in a different identity and experience how each suit harbours protective qualities. Emmerson communicates both a destabilisation of a constructed ‘gender’ identity and also considers connotations associated with gay experience in a public realm. In particular the way in which the protective nature of dressing has seemingly become a necessity to everyday life and how through the espousal of certain stereotypes projected onto communities, particularly the gay and lesbian community. As this has become a way of negotiating discrimination in the public realm.

Tenille Lategan

Reviewed by Hana Aoake

Photos by Ted Whitaker.

First Published in Critic Issue #22, 2011

Censored Hetrohorror – Group Show

Note: This review space encourages opinions and reviews. Two reviewers pulled the plug on sharing their ideas of this show opting for censorship. Like all reviews here feel welcome to add comments (below).

Beevors, Eady, Oliphant

Censored

Censored exhibition

Censored exhibition

Michelle Beevors

Scott Eady (left) and Jamie Oliphant (right)

Censored exhibition

Images by Pam McKinley

Smoke And Mirrors – Group Show

Smoke And Mirrors

On Wednesday the 15th people flocked to the Dunedin School of Art gallery to see the collective exhibition, Smoke and Mirrors, showcasing three prominent Dunedin artists. Anja Sinclair, Michael Greaves and Peter Cleverly are all well established within the Dunedin art scene and their collaborative showing made for an interesting combination of works, highlighting each of their very different and individual styles.

Anja Sinclair’s work is mystical and enchanting. Aspects of her earlier style were evident in this exhibition with the adoption of soft and dreamy textures, however a new use of stronger tones in burgundy and emerald jade, dominated the canvas. This new use of colour gave the works quite an unnerving yet beautiful quality. One tends to get lost in these powerful depictions of nature.

A skilful quality seen in this collection is her ability to portray landscapes in an abstract and expressive manner whilst maintaining a vivid image of the scene. This looser style is a development from her previous works and can be seen in the dripping effect of the burgundy paint. Anja is a very talented painter and it will be interesting to see her future progression. This set of works highlights, again, what a talented painter this young women is; a true darling of Dunedin.

Anya Sinclair

Michael Greaves’ collection takes us on a journey from one side of the globe to the other, literally. The works encompass various scenes and landmarks from Berlin, Prague, Paris and Dunedin and appear to be hung in an unconventional manner, with no distinct flow of places visited.

This seemingly unconventional style is further expressed through the use of various mediums from one work to the next, at times encompassing more than one within a single work. Mediums used included, graphite, watercolour, gauache, glitter, oil, ink jet photo and kohl.  This mixed media approach highlights the journey through the different cultures and settings in which Greaves based his collection. The works have a frantic feel to them and one might question whether this reflects Greaves’ own journey through Europe.

Finally, Peter Cleverley’s collection made for a whole different concept all together. His use of large dog imagery, religious symbolism, pictures of ethnic-tribal figures and skull and cross bone were portrayed in a very jarring nature.

These images were put against stark yet bold colours on large canvases, bar one work, which was a coffin shaped box. ‘Sea Dog’ was an interesting work with an image of a dog’s head appearing as an island surrounded by water.  This dog image and the other well known and familiar symbols juxtaposed against the natural environment possibly reflected a relationship between, and an influence of the land and its people. The jarring and sharpness of some imagery, including the coffin, the cross bone, etc triggered the idea that Cleverley is making broader political statements about the human condition.

Reviewed by Em & Co.

Michael Greaves

Michael Greaves

Anya Sinclair

Peter Cleverley

Smoke And Mirrors

Peter Cleverley

Anya Sinclair

Simone Montgomery – Satori

August 31st – September 10th 2010

Barbara Kruger
“Untitled (I shop, therefore I am)” 1987
Photographic silkscreen on vinyl
111 x 113 inches.
“You either love it or hate it. How shopping affects us seems to be intrinsically linked to our physiological needs, identity and desires.” -Simone Montgomery.

On walking into Simone Montgomery’s MFA exhibition entitled Satori an interesting visual popped into my head. …One of mothers fishing tissues out of bottomless bags stuffed to the brim with keys, snacks, disposable nappies and good knows what else, to wipe snotty noses of bawling babes. A women’s handbag says a lot about who they are or who they want to be. It is a highly intimate space and the aggregate of accoutrement they choose to haul and what they house it in speaks magnitudes. Montgomery’s “Ladylike Classic” is reminiscent of the highly sort after “Birkin” bag by Hermes or Gucci’s “Jackie O” bag. The “Ladylike Classic” highlights how identity and self worth can be linked to what women dangle from their arms. A bag is more than a place to put your tampons it is an indicator of (perceived) status and station in life, or so the magazines/fashion blogs profess. Gaining a sense of self from possessions is not a modern concept but the fact that there is now a shoppers anonymous and an industry built around the so called addiction is. Montgomery’s bags are beautiful see-through creations that are not only delightful to look at but raise the question is consumerism out of control? “101 Reasons to go Shopping” reminds me of the laying out of purchases after the credit card has had a wallop. Surveying the damage, the post-purchase come down. Montgomery has managed to make plastic bags delightful and desirable. They are elegantly executed and bewitching. She has taken a material seen by many as disposable and given it value, not unlike the Scott Paper Company did with paper in 1966. By producing paper dresses as a marketing gimmick to promote a new paper stock Scott Paper Company coincidentally created a new fashion trend. The ultimate in disposable fashion. (And of course the package is covered in plastic.)

There is 10 million tons of plastic floating in the sea. Of 312 species of seabirds, some 111 species or 36% are known to mistakenly ingest plastic. 

Reviewed by Rachel Allan

 

 

Post Cards – Group Show

August 2010

The recent first year BVA painting exhibition held at the School of Art gallery surprised me in more ways than I expected. Used to the staid brief of “produce a body of work, exhibit the final product”, I was pleased and slightly jealous to see that this approach has been replaced by something far more interesting.

Each student developed a postcard sized painting, sent it to a ‘critic’ of their choice, and then exhibited the work alongside the written critical response. Critics ranged from family to friends to teachers and beyond, and the responses ranged from paragraphs of encouragement to an admittance of confusion caused by the work.

The paintings produced by the students were impressive considering the time restrictions of first year disciplines. Subject matter across the board tended to lean towards contemporary influences, with pop culture imagery being used frequently, as was text, sometimes with subtlety, at other times unashamedly, although generalising is never accurate as some students chose to take completely different angles, stretching to one work depicting borderline sadomasochistic scenes. All in a day at art school. Personal taste led me to prefer the pared down works, in particular one painting illustrating body parts which was so fine and delicate it resembled an image straight out of Grays Anatomy (the book, not the TV show). In some cases the corresponding written critiques worked in favour of the painting, in others they added confusion to the mix. Irregardless of the stance the critics took, the responses were absorbing in almost every case, and added a much needed element of difference and interest to the exhibition. I was not the only one who thought this, as a large crowd (especially for midday opening time) moved around the gallery, slowing viewing each work and appearing engrossed in the written critiques. I left feeling impressed by the professionalism of the show, pleased at the publicity the group of painting students has received so early on, and a little bit envious of the inventive format of the show. All in all, it was a short but sweet exhibition from a class of confident students worth watching out for as they continue through the school.

Reviewed by Jane McEntyre

Blue W Black – Against The Grain

July/August 2010

Image: Lucinda King

Blue’s work is a hectic mix of materials scavenged from the city dump; cardboard rolled or flat, wire, mattress springs, bed frames, sponges, mops, cane basket handles, plastic bags, newspaper, insulation pipes, glass, sand, wood, macramé hangings and sticks. Blue brings each piece of material together in a wonderful concoction of colour and shapes. Process is key for Blue who transforms these collected materials into vague part-human forms which he then dips into a clay slurry, hangs to dry, fires, glazes and fires again.

There are two large works in which these forms are collected and hung with mattress coils from raised bed frames. The first of which has a distinct feel of a dance taking place within the figures and indeed Blue assures me that they are dancing. “Pogo dancers”, he calls them, each figure having a name of its own, “Party Girl”, “Bird’s Nest” and my favourite “Anxiety”. There are hidden places in each figure, some have hollow parts or creases, others large, gangly duck feet and a surface like chicken skin made of dripping sand and Egyptian paste.

The other bed frame, higher and a rusted red, has more sombre, frightening forms hanging from the same coiled mattress springs. Some springs are tightly coiled, while some hang lower, their coils stretched with the impression of weight. Blue says this work is a bed for macabre dreams, each form more vague than the last, taking on shapes of organs, and coloured deep purple-red like liver, hearts and spleens. Where the forms have touched the sand in the kiln there are large areas of yellow and orange bubbling out from the sculptures like fatty corpuscles or marbled chunks of steak. One form even suggests an empty uterus, purple and swollen. When he first hung these forms to dry, the first thing that came to his mind was the image of an abattoir, mimicking the large, red hunks of meat hung up to drain.

Image: Lucinda king

At a previous show in Auckland Blue took this idea further showing the forms in a much smaller glass-encased bed frame. Viewing the gallery from across the street at night, the forms, lit from below, glared out from their case like meat, bones and liver on display at a delicatessen.

There is a constant theme of mobility in Blue’s work, who says this mobility is extremely important within his own history and social positioning. For Blue, his process of working is so necessarily physical that it becomes a performance which the forms themselves document. Explicitly the sculptures speak of movement as they sit on trolley wheels and rockers or hover just above ground, but the sculptures also express the movement inherent in the process of Blue’s work. Most of the sculptures have been reworked over and over again, fired, glazed, fired, glazed, often cut open by a diamond saw, reassembled, glazed and fired again.

What amazes me most about Blue’s process is the colour that comes through and drapes over his works. Often there is one final glaze, laid over many older glazes, which when pushed with Blue’s experimentation to a hotter temperature blooms with deep rich colours of all kinds.

Two works of my personal favourite sit roughly in the centre of the room. The first which Blue describes as an eye, looks towards the entrance, all teeth and throat, receding finally into a bright tail of tangled, multi-coloured cords. Teeth crop up again in Blue’s work in one of the dancing forms named “Bird’s Nest” where Blue’s own teeth decorate the sculpture. The other larger work in the centre of the room still resonates for me as I write. A bare mattress base, without a frame, only menacing coils sits flat on a red sheet of paper. Weighed down on top is a life size human form composed of many old works, cut and re-fired in the kiln, covered in a beautiful green glaze. Looking down onto the work we look into the hollows of the original sculptures where the raw clay is visible like deep wounds.

The work struck me with a fist. Suddenly I was back in the S21 Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia whose rooms I had walked through ten months ago. In each room of the prison is a large photograph of how the room was discovered in 1979. Each room contained one mattress, bare of everything but vulgar metal springs and a prisoner chained to the frame by a foot-iron, sprawled over the bed or the floor. When the Vietnamese discovered the prison after invading Phnom Penh to beat back the Khmer Rouge, most of the prisoners were dead; either long buried or lying in one of these rooms where even now their blood stains the floors. Roughly 15,000 people were thought to have entered the prison, including a New Zealand man who was killed there, only 12 are known to have survived. Looking down into the “wounds” on Blue’s sculpture, I saw those photographs at the back of my mind, saw the deep, red holes in people I’d never met. Blue’s figure lay on the mattress springs in a similar pose of defeat despite the colour and life that was also laid out flat for me to see.

There is a distinct polarity within Blue’s work, many of his sculptures are light and humorous while others lurk beneath their dark glazes and speak of more sinister things. There is a pervading yellow glow that follows you around the room emanating from some of the lighter works where Blue has used oil sticks and glitter to colour the work. I left the room with a deep sense of satisfaction at the ways in which materials, colours and ideas can come together and form something bright and new despite containing all the darker, hidden parts of us that must come along for the ride.

Reviewed by Anne Basquin

Sweet FA – Group Show

James Bellany

June 2010

The third year bachelor of fine arts [BFA] and bachelor of visual arts [BVA] exhibition at the Dunedin school of art consisted of an overwhelmingly diverse array of works, with no obvious cohesive thread linking them together. This seemed to highlight the impressive range of works produced by the students at the Dunedin school of art. However such an extensive accumulation of works made one feel overwhelmed to the point of claustrophobia, with the space becoming shallow and many of the works losing their visual impact. Such diversity is often too difficult to properly absorb. However there were some very strong pieces exhibited, particularly from the electronic arts department. Mark Currie’s carefully executed piece ‘motion’ was a simulated urban experience in sped up motion. This enabled the viewer to experience a sensation of dizziness, as though they were on a rollercoaster. Currie’s piece had an intensive interactive quality, which was what made it so successful. It evoked an emotional response from the viewer, as he was perhaps alluding to the disorientation one can feel after observing a cascading cityscape for a long period of time.

Mark Currie

Emma Burgman’s ‘stretching’; a triptych depicting a figure literally elongating the body at different times only made me feel somewhat fleetingly engaged. This film’s repetitive nature, made one feel sedate and bemused. Somewhat interestingly, ‘stretching’ appeared to be reminiscent of torture devices used in medieval witch hunts. Due to the nature of this exhibition, only a select few works should be considered highly regarded, as they were thoughtfully rendered and emphasize the artist’s skill level. James Bellaney’s paintings; ‘Waste land’ and ‘what do you reflect’ were poignantly rendered to seemingly reflect the sequential nature of life. Ewey Boyle’s ‘work in progress’ was plausibly alluding to the realm of deconstructed designs, similar to those by Japanese fashion designer Rei Kawakubo.  Also notable was Kiri Mitchell’s six etchings, primarily engrossing was ‘Shadow boxer 1’.

Reviewed by Hana Aoake.

Emma Burgman

Kiri Mitchell (left), James Bellany (foor), Ewey Boyle (right)

Joshua Aberhart – Cut Piece

Performance 17th of May 2010

Joshua Aberhart is a male, Yoko Ono is a female. Shifting the context of this glamorous performance reenactment of the famous Cut Piece from 1964. The performance is a bold act of mystery when giving the audience the control over a taboo issue of getting naked in a crowd.

On entering the gallery Aberhart is stationary, he sits slightly femininely on a wide plinth-like table facing a seated audience with an aisle running down the centre complete with one dramatic spotlight. There is a nervous silence and unease as the door is locked, an understanding that it is now up to the audience whether to cut. The ice was broken and soon scissor momentum increased with a large portion of the cuts coming from lecturers of the Dunedin School of Art. His cotton tee-shirt fell like rags but with little movement towards the pants or groin area. The performance ends with no more takers and Aberhart rises from the plinth and strides down the aisle to the back exit of the gallery.

A striking aspect I found about this reenactment was the stern glare from Aberhart relentlessly throughout the cutting period. There may not have been any direct eye contact but the low-brow, eyes forward stare was engaging. I could see an expression of anger and helplessness but remaining proud like a wife mind-talking to her husband .

As a male Aberhart historically puts himself in a womans place in turn creating a contemporary spin on the role of a male objectified in art.

Review by Sebastian Proverb

Michael Greaves – Will You Miss Me When I Burn

6 – 14th May 2010

With a name like “will you miss me when I burn,” it’s fairly clear that it’s not going to be the most optimistic of exhibitions. And in this aspect I was not disappointed; I found myself looking at each picture – particularly the portraits – playing the title over and over in my head. “Will you miss me? Well, will you?”

As is probably self-evident, I was fixated on the portraits. The other paintings were nice, but they weren’t as powerful as the portraits. Nor did they so neatly encapsulate the theme of the exhibition. An upside-down cake and a chandelier look kind of nifty, but they don’t really ask if you’ll miss them, at least not in a language that I could understand.

But the portraits made up for it in spades. Each one is a different person, asking the tituar question with his or her facial expression. They cover a wide range of expressions, but still carry the same message, which is what attracts me to this exhibition. The aptly-named “full of hell” has a man brashly extending not one but two middle fingers, while  “a promise partook” and “you will have my word” are both quieter, more resigned expressions.

And that is the crux of Greaves’s exhibition. It’s not just about the human desire for recognition. Rather, it’s about how, even though we all experience it (and a myriad of other emotions), we express them very differently. Some of us scream, some of us act out, and some of us are quietly resigned (or resilient?)The point, though, is that no matter how different we may look, we’re still more similar than we might want to admit.

“Who will miss me when I burn?” It’s a vice, to be sure. It’s a selfish emotion. But it’s one we all have. And that is an idea that Greaves conveyed with very real talent and a very real ability to engage with his theme.

Reviewed by Sam Grover.

Bridget Inders – Fa’a Aotearoa

19-26^th March 2010

On first sighting of Bridget Inders’ work Fa`a Aotearoa I am struck by the clean and  ordered structure of the hanging, the tonal range of colour, and the multiplicity of prints. Individuality of print is only noticed on closer inspection. And although each can be viewed separately, together they flow.

Monochromatic in nature, lines of dimly lit prints flank the gallery walls, with the lighting at each end of the gallery enhancing a cluster of four prints and a line of five, suggesting a hierarchic and  highly organised culture.

Floating on white walls tapa patterns rip through earthy ochre tones, small islands and imprints of ‘otherness.’ The patterns mainly isolated, with thin tentacles joining each to the other.

Inders’ work speaks to us of the loneliness of being a ‘hybrid’ culture in a colonised nation. In a culture where bi-culturalism is still lip service and a conversation where third parties aren’t always welcome.

It speaks to us of a sense of displacement, and a fragile unity. A fragile unity strengthened by numbers.

Her prints have the same dripping quality of the work of  John Pule, using pacific symbols and patterns in a similar way. Unlike Pule’s work it is unclear as to whether or not her choice of patterns is fully understood. There is something of the generic about them, which could be a testament to Inders’ understanding of the unrelenting nature of racism.

It was easier to understand what the work was about by reading the text. This wider understanding helped when dealing with the complexity of the issues that this work is touching on.

As much as I understand the nature of her work conceptually I feel the visual images could develop further to articulate more succinctly some of the issues raised in the text.

Perhaps there is a co- relation to the super flat images of Japanese pop art, the stylisation of traditional methods and artwork to fit a western colonised, consumerist and contemporary world. It also fits to the way that Pacific Island cultures (and indigenous cultures)are viewed by the  West.

Individually and as a group these works do read well and Inders’ work has definite potential. It will be interesting to see where her work will go in the future.

Catherine Cocker.