Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards 2024
Feb
18
to Apr 6

Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards 2024

  • Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi - Whakatāne Library and Exhibition Centre (map)
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Presented by Arts Whakatāne and exhibition partner Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi - Whakatāne Library and Exhibition Centre, this annual non-acquisitive award is dedicated to excellence across contemporary Painting and Drawing. The award has developed over 35 years and sits credibly within the New Zealand arts community.

A high standard of work is selected to form the exhibition from nationwide entries by three independent pre-selection judges, then a guest judge is charged with awarding the winning works, announced at the award ceremony held every February.

For participants, the MMCA offers professional development opportunities to artists by showcasing their practice to peers, collectors, critics, museum curators, the media and the community at large.

List of Finalists:

George Agius, Feilding  - Pillow Talk

Megan Archer, Auckland  - Fantasy Flesh

Simon Attwooll, Wellington  - The things we choose to wear

Debbie Barber & Jules Turner, Auckland  - Still Lives

Macarena Bernal, Auckland  - Molotov Cocktail

Constanza Briceno, Papamoa  - Artifacts: my dad's inventions

Elijah Broughton, Wellington - Seed

David Brown, Wellington - AR 2023-174/1xHen

Kara Burrowes, Christchurch - Peripheral Haze

Oliver Cain, Auckland - Fruit Bowl Noir

Elliot Collins, Taranaki - One Million, Two Hundred Forty-four Thousand and Three Hundred Acres

Elliot Collins, Taranaki - Did you get the watercress I left you?

Jimi Colzato, Tauranga - Untitled 001

Linda Cook, Dunedin - Bodements of Becoming

Marion Courtillé, Napier  - I love your guts III

Bridgit Day, Whangarei - Green on Green

Jennie De Groot, Hamilton - OK, Boomer

Jennie De Groot, Hamilton - Cold Comfort

Akiko Diegel, Auckland - The victory of little broken wings

Donna Dinsdale, Te Puke - 1838

Leslie Falls, Havelock North - "For what it's worth" Postcard advice

James R Ford, Wellington - Finitude (BSCL2)

Wesley John Fourie, Port Chalmers - Ray of Light (Genesis)

Hemaima Gardner, Whakatāne - Whānau of Light

Sandy Gaskell, Whitianga - Mō Te Aroha Ki Te Whenua

Wanda Gillespie, Auckland - Counting Frames for a Transient Era

Tony Guo, Auckland - Stale

Natalie Holland, Wellington - In the shadow of the maunga a kātene starts to bloom

Paige Jansen, Lyttelton - Lattice Breath

Madison Kelly, Dunedin - Tautiaki Splash

Claudia Kogachi, Auckland - Beluga whales swimming in the air

Skye Lu, Auckland - Stranded #1

Rose Meyer, Auckland - hone/space

Jane Molloy-Wolt, Kerikeri - It was a sad day when I left Loppersum.

Jane Molloy-Wolt, Kerikeri - My Father's Journey

Cam Munro, Ōtaki  - Labyrinth

Lisa Passmore, Waihi - Cliabh

Ming Ranginui, Wellington - Till the clock strikes 5

Claudia Recorean, Westport - Canary Theory

Clark Roworth, Wellington - Skew

Moniek Schrijer, Wellington - Michelangelo

Taarn Scott, Auckland - At the Altar (shrine series), 2023

Karen Sewell, Auckland - Stardust (from my back yard), 2023

Liz Sharek, Auckland - Reef

Louann Siddon, Christchurch - Bibelot

Daphne Simons, Auckland - Meet Venus

Rowan Thomson & Peter Derksen, Auckland - Transmutation (drift)

Adele Tierney, Whakatāne - Te Waharoa - the narrow door

Debbie Tipuna, Tauranga - Adornment

Anna Turnbull, Christchurch - Make-up, Makeup

George Turner, Wellington - Gorse in my Shoe (2023)

Kate van der Drift, Raglan - Esk River I (after Gabrielle)

Charette van Eekelen, Christchurch - Breathing in Spring

Charette van Eekelen, Christchurch - Big Magic

Janna van Hasselt, Christchurch - Condition Report

Ruth Vickers, Tauranga - Dust

Sonja Walker, Nelson - Everything but...the bowl

Tim Wigmore, Ōmata - Tahi

Llyr Williams, Wellington - The Belisha Beacon

TM Wootten, Auckland - All For A Scrap Of Paper #1

Bonnie Wroe, Wellington - Lucy

Georgina Young, Dunedin - Pikipiki

Jonghyun Yun, Whakatāne - A Dollar Fifty

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Tui
May
16
to Jun 15

Tui

July 2025

This show is based on a found pencil drawing of a water jug with a glass and lemon found in a second hand store in Taranaki in 2018. It is my hope that the show holds the original artists name to the light for a little longer.

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Yours Truly x
Dec
15
to Feb 17

Yours Truly x

In this invite-only exhibition at Percy Thomson Gallery, Gallery Director Laura Campbell has challenged 30 artists from around Aotearoa to ‘show their true self’; to reveal their point of difference and do so in a safe space.

This exhibition is about identity. Artists decide whether to look inward and examine themselves in a self-portrait or look outward at the way they view the world through their lens. An exhibition sharing stories of youth, multi-culturalism, feminism, LGBTQI+ community, mental health journeys and environmental issues we face.

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Personal. Reflective. Healing.

Yours Truly x

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Sierra Roberts

Gwyn Hughes

MB Stoneman

Hayley Elliot-Kernot

Jodi Naik

Milarky

Portia Roper

MiSun Kim

Rohan Wealleans

Rachael Davies

Morgan Paige

Jana Branca

Mark Raymer

Reyna Henderson

Isaac Petersen

Harry Moores

Elliot Collins

Fern Petrie

Shannon Novak

Dwayne Duthie

Darcy Nicholas

Maryanne Shearman

Tania Niwa

Mary MacGregor-Reid

Jennifer Halli

Mikaela Nyman

Chauncey Flay

Renate Verbrugge

Maria Brockhill

Kirsty McLean

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Don’t judge a book by its cover; it may take you on another journey.
May
5
to Jul 8

Don’t judge a book by its cover; it may take you on another journey.

Co-Curated by Laura Campbell and Justin Jade Morgan.

Bringing together a diverse selection of artworks from The Arts House Trust New Zealand’s largest privately held art collection ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover; it may take you on another journey’ aims to lure the viewer beyond the cover of a book to reveal new pictorial narratives.

Drawing inspiration from the four book based works: Earth Book 2 by Len Castle, Models, Methods and Assumptions by Paul Cullen, In Search for an Invisible Rose by Peter Madden and Art book and sound by Leon Van Den Eijke.

Each of the selected artworks within this exhibition provides a new layer of interpretation and new spaces of discourse through the artistic realm of text, image and form.

Conceptual thought, possible decay of the written word and visual trickery may be at play here, but where will these new opportunities for interpretation and artistic engagement take you?

 “We are proud to present an exhibition from this prestigious private collection at Percy Thomson Gallery, which will then tour to other locations on its way back to Pah Homestead in Auckland.”

 Featuring artworks by the following artists:

 Andrew BLYTHE

Mark BRAUNIAS

Matthew BROWNE

Len CASTLE

Elliot COLLINS

Paul CULLEN

Johl DWYER

James R FORD

Peter GIBSON SMITH

Roy GOOD

Bill HAMMOND

Will HANDLEY

Yolunda HICKMAN

Ralph HOTERE                                                    

Vanessa KONG

Peter MADDEN

Brendan MORAN

Milan MRKUSICH

Shannon NOVAK

Paul RAYNER

John REYNOLDS

Michael SMITHER

Bruce STEWART

Andre TJABERINGS

Philip TRUSTTUM

Leon VAN DEN EIJKEL

Virginia KING

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Land Body Time
Nov
22
to Dec 3

Land Body Time

a shared show by Hana Carpenter and Elliot Collins

Land Body Time

This collection of work plays with the physicality of gestural mark making and with capturing and containing the body’s energy, which is an empowering creative act. The gesture moves from the body to the painted surface and lingers for a moment before shifting or being withdrawn.

The slow gestation of poetic moments start from somewhere deep and buried; down in the centre of one’s spine. The physical act of painting is a reminder that the artist will always be present.

Hana’s work references the real-time visualisation of sonography, which gives a glimpse into the body’s active subterrain. The paintings are biopsies, ambiguous organic structures, captured in a suspended state or moment. They hold themselves in a liminal borderland of knowing and unknowing.

Elliot’s work references deep time as well as the obvious yet sporadic way memory works. Flowing inwards or outwards, the river of memory continues. It can meander in the open for collective remembrance or sink into deep caverns of dark, cold, hidden journeys for only the rememberer to recall during those moments of silence.

Painting enables Hana to reclaim power and a sense of self. Fluid paint is employed in a physical and intuitive building and obliteration of form, the entropy, alchemy and agency of mark making. Her gesture is her voice.

Painting gives Elliot a chance to exhale. It stands in for him when he can’t be there to wave the flag of understanding or consideration. Words are employed just under the surface of the paint to recall things we’ve lost or act as reminder, a memorial about a far to specific memory for public good. His words are his voice.

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A Very Different World
Feb
13
to May 8

A Very Different World

A Very Different World brings to light the changed realities and unprecedented difficulties of the COVID-19 pandemic. The artists share their experiences of the past year in works that focus on hope and wellbeing – reflecting the second chance this gruelling time offered to practise reverence for life and to connect as a human family. The newly commissioned works show that the artists are engaging in an altered world, working out new cultural and philosophical standpoints. This kaupapa is their occasion to express love, care and concern for mental and emotional conditions that appear dire yet can be instructive. A Very Different World also contributes to heart-led creativity that links to a whakapapa of continuous art practice in Aotearoa New Zealand, Tonga, Hawai‘i and Canada.

https://tetuhi.art/exhibition/a-very-different-world/

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Te Tuhi Billboards - Parnell
Dec
19
to Mar 2

Te Tuhi Billboards - Parnell

On the Te Tuhi Billboards in Parnell, Elliot Collins presents an ongoing body of work that ruminates on landscape and memory.

Documenting maunga (mountains) across Aotearoa that the artist visited, following in his ancestors’ footsteps, I Remember Mountainscreates lateral connections to the landscape as experienced through our bodies and intergenerational memory. Calling into question the first-person ‘I’ in the work’s title by casting the viewer as a protagonist who constructs their own world through their perspective, the artist posits that places become heritable and moveable.

Collins acknowledges his Pākehā worldview by adopting an image of native mistletoe, pikirangi, a semi-parasitic vine that relies on a host tree for sustenance and birds to disperse its seeds, and whose flowers give the text in the work its colour. In doing so, the artist encourages Pākehā and tauiwi viewers to reflect on their own connections to the land and their responsibility as manuhiri (visitors).

I Remember Mountains, 2019 (install view) commissioned by Te Tuhi, Auckland photo by Andrew Kennedy

I Remember Mountains, 2019 (install view)
commissioned by Te Tuhi, Auckland
photo by Andrew Kennedy

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Solasteliga
Nov
19
to Dec 21

Solasteliga

Solastalgia is a series of abstracted landscape paintings based on photographs of my travels around Aotearoa. They act as memory markers for places of national importance or sites of personal contemplation. Bearing witness to a world that is being so drastically changed around me the newly coined term solastalgia seems like a fitting tribute to our time here in the Holocene, a time of great change in human history. 

 

Solastalgia is a new concept developed to give greater meaning and clarity to environmentally induced distress. As opposed to nostalgia, the melancholia or homesickness experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home, solastalgia is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment. Elyne Mitchell, in her book Soil and Civilization (1946) writes, 

 

no time or nation will produce genius if there is a steady decline away from the integral unity of man and the earth. The break in this unity is swiftly apparent in the lack of “wholeness” in the individual person. Divorced from his roots, man loses his psychic stability. (E. Mitchell (1946), Soil and Civilization, Halstead Press, Sydney, p.4.)

 

The paintings act as stand-ins for the memory of a place. The feeling of the colours and light in these places resonate with the "forever-ness" of the land and yet are abstracted from that land to draw on the way the change in landscape leaves one feeling dis-placed and longing for a time before. I want these works to call on the deep and intrinsic need for all of us to go into the landscape and breathe it and to inhabit it before we forget what it looked like and how it felt. In a attempt to move away from the singular authoritative voice, these works are examples of a landscape view not the landscape view. I am inviting you into my vision to try and help you see what I see.

 

Maybe you have visited these places and stood where I did to take the photograph. But maybe these landscapes escape you and they have changed and only this vague recording of shape and colour tells you of the sensation of these places. Maybe this is more accurate than the photographic source; these paintings show you how, and give permission to feel, in a world that would distract you from our connection to our changing environment.

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Whakaruru | Shelter
Aug
17
to Oct 5

Whakaruru | Shelter

Group show, Nga Tohu o Uenuku - Mangere Arts Centre

Artists: Sanjay Theodore, Fe’ena Syme-Buchanan, Vivien Atkinson, Elliot Collins, Lonnie Hutchinson

 This exhibition grew from one artist’s observation of the almost-universal blue tarpaulin phenomenon. The Blue Tarp is so often used that is has become an architectural motif, spotted from Mumbai to Manurewa. Blue Tarps are used as temporary shelters, as waterproof walls on porches, to seal broken windows, as a joining roof between two structures. They can be a tell-tale sign of housing in a state of transition. The exhibition title alludes to Maslow’s well-known hierarchy of needs (which includes at its most basic, shelter, air, water, food). What we have come to expect from shelter has changed radically, particularly in the wake of diverging social inequality. 

The artists here have been brought together because of a shared interest in the insecurity around housing. For Syme-Buchanan, this interest is triggered by the depopulation that many nations in the Pacific region are facing. Her photographic project Secluded Splendour documents life on Mangaia through a suite of 27 images as well as daily-life documentary video. She suggests that “in 1985 there were around 1,500 people on Mangaia, and today, there are about 490 – that’s a big outward movement from one island.” The causes of de-population are complex and, like the housing shortage in Auckland, there is not one trigger but many. 

Wellington Jeweller Vivien Atkinson presents house-shaped brooches, a piece of adornment made from construction industry by-products. Her works hints at the tension between homelessness and houses that are fitted out by choice in an affluent consumer culture. At the point of sale, her works trigger a donation to a charity that provides emergency housing for those that have very few choices. 

Local Māngere Bridge artist, Sanjay Theodore creates temporary tent like structures from foil emergency shelters. His tents allude to a life sourced economically from found materials on the street. His poetic project is not without comfort nor compassion, as he has also sourced found paintings to decorate, second-hand. 

The choice of materials is also a stand out feature in Lonnie Hutchinson’s cut-out structure. Using black building insulation paper, Hutchinson has been creating delicate silhouettes for many years. The structure in this exhibition A prototype for a dream casts delicate shadows as a pavilion rather than a permanent home, a place of temporary respite. 

Elliot Collins painting Wharemoe is literally “The Sleeping House”. He says, the works are “a memorial to temporary things” for many, just like notion of housing security. His painting sits alongside a series of painted oyster shells. The shells are solid structures, built up layer on layer by a living organism. They are homes too, for bivalve molluscs, but they are re-purposed by Collins with a plaintive, lyrical question. 

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Sculpture on the Gulf
Mar
1
to Mar 29

Sculpture on the Gulf

  • Auckland, 1081 New Zealand (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Memory Castle, 2019

Scaffolding, fencing, billboard vinyl, cable ties and enamel pens.

Alison Park, Oneroa

 

This work comprises of hundreds of memories of visitors and residents on Waiheke Island. The pennants that cover this temporary castle flutter on the breeze and signal a thought, prayer or reminder of a person, place or moment that is significant to those individuals who add their flag to the castle.

 The scaffolding acts as a skeleton or sketch of a castle, a building that was traditionally made to be long lasting and solid. This castle is the inverse of this type of structure. It is transparent and momentary just like a passing memory or thought of a loved one or a past event. It questions ways of holding on to memory or ways of letting go.

The hand drawn flags made by local school children and visitors are added to the castle over the duration of Sculpture on the Gulf 2019 and reflect the value of memory that each contributor shares. Those who pass by Memory Castle will be asked to pause a moment, read a few flags and contemplate how collective memory works in an age of introversion and isolation.

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