Featuring the work of local artists Adam Gallivan, King Komodo, Datura Child and Tyler Clifton
Quirky nature is a celebration of the universe and all it contains. With artworks ranging from a precise study of a one-off moth, to a blending of biologies to create serene new creatures who hum at the stars, Megan de Mar explores what’s in the back yard and out into the cosmos.
Artist bio
Megan de Mar grew up in Newtown and now lives in Te Awa Kairangi Lower Hutt. Her artworks are inspired by the natural world around us, in all its weird and beautiful glory. She works in acrylic, watercolour and gouache.
Megan was taught by Rob McLeod at Wellington High School in the 90s and gained scholarship marks for Bursary painting in Year 13. She was then was accepted into Massey University the first year they offered a Fine Arts degree but decided to complete her degree in English Literature instead.
Three children and a communications career later (as for many of us) lockdown forced her to think about what she was missing and she began to paint again.
Megan works in the environment sector so is acutely aware of our changing climate. Her artworks are a call to see the beauty in a moment, and reminder of what we have worth fighting for. Her use of colour inverts the everyday and challenges assumptions that what we see is all that’s there.
Power Poles Carry the Dreams of Both Human and Electric Sheep
Pen and ink on paper. Colour version of an earlier piece. Commentary on society, the layers of technology that surround us and a speculation into the dreams of other things including a duck, a robot and a winged horse.
A first time artist raised around artists, currently working in technology, this exhibition is about finding and expressing voice through colour, mixing cultural styles and working with negative space.
WHAKATAU MAI RĀ E NGĀ HAU E WHĀ Calling In The Four Winds
I have been contemplating my life over the last few years, I had a breakthrough moment that I might only have 40 summers left on this beautiful earth mother, Papatūānuku. That within every connection to the present is a blessing, and that the gratitude that comes from this feeling is one of pure joy.
Whakatau mai rā e ngā hau e whā (Calling in the Four Winds) is a piece of work that spans the last 3 months of my life. Incorporating my travels throughout Aotearoa, and even to Melbourne (Naarm). Each piece was made on a part of whenua that I have been before, each location being in essence a place where my mauri (life force) is bound to the mauri of the whenua (land).
The creation of these Taonga Pūoro is a way for me to alchemise my mauri. These energy trails that I leave on the whenua, on this land, for me needed to be witnessed. Each piece was a way for me to transform these old energy trails into something new, by witnessing my old self, I could witness the parts of me that have grown. Calling in the Four Winds is a way for me to embrace the four directions, the power of the four winds, and for them to help me transmute my mauri, my life force.
Mauri tau
Mauri noho
Mauri ohooho
Mauri ora
From Te Pō comes Te Pū, from Te Pū comes Te Pō. From the darkness comes the light, and from light comes the darkness. I can witness my shadows and can express my light, that for every moment of darkness, eventually the light will come back.
I have made 28 Taonga Pūoro, from Purerehua, to Porotiti and for the first time Koauau (flutes) in collaboration with Sam Palmer.
Seven Taonga were created for each wind direction.
Te Hau Kauaki (northerly), Te Hau Rāwhiti (easterly), Te Hau Tonga (southerly), and Hau-ā-uru (westerly).
With each wind direction having its own colour, teal, green, red and yellow. The carved lines represent my views of the landscape around me, being the hills, or the lines of waves crashing on the shore, birds, trees, the movement of seagrass.
Each Taonga was named after the location of where the piece was carved or the intention of what I was wanting to move through at the time of carving.
Ngā mihinui,
Mumu Moore
Have you ever held a moth in your hands and it left glittery powder on your fingers? You might not be able to see it, but that powder is in fact tiny scales.
Like feathers, those scales create pockets of insulation to keep the moth warm and provide heat for better muscle regulation during flight.
They also provide camouflage through shimmering colours and delicate patterns. Just as lace can disguise the body, while simultaneously revealing everything.
Armed with just a scalpel, Julia overlays delicate floral, botanical, and geometric lace patterns with moth silhouettes, leaving behind a sprinkling of tiny paper scales in her wake.
Profile
Julia Scott is a Wellington-based artist who specialises in paper art, with each piece meticulously cut out of paper by hand.
Drawn to intricate paper collages while working towards a BFA, she also creates large scale hand-cut street maps by commission.
She currently spends most of her time trail running with her dogs, working in environmental communications, and volunteering with the Remutaka Conservation Trust.
My compositions come directly from my own experience, such as my local surroundings, places I’ve explored or friends I was with. I try to keep the subjects varied to reflect the diversity of New Zealand landscapes.
Architecture is my main passion and I enjoy painting the bright and colourful street scenes around Wellington to capture the way they harmonise with the surrounding nature. I’m currently based in Hataitai and hope to paint more harbour views of Wellington in the coming months.
"Long is the way and hard, that leads out of hell up to light"
These photographic works are an interpretation of, and were taken and produced, during a 400 day journey of sobriety after a lifetime addiction to alcohol. The images are a visual commentary on my personal labouring in the darkness, the damage it caused, and the journey to a lighter and brighter future of sobriety. Expressed through light and shadow. Hand printed in the darkroom, from 35mm and 120 roll film black and white negative, onto fiber based art paper and then selenium toned for warmth and archival permanence.
Charles Edwards worked in the screen industry playing with cameras. This led to playing with still cameras. Then the often obsessional and inevitable segues this passion has to playing in the darkroom. And has been freezing photons with film - since 1997. Currently working as a full time Dad by day and a photographic darkroom artist by night.
This dinosaur art and poetry exhibition is based on the comedy performance poem, Prehistoric Dreams. It follows the adult life of Mitchell Cunningham, who decided at a very young age that he would be a dinosaur when he grew up. However adult life is tricky without opposable thumbs or the ability to fit through doorways.
All dinosaur sketches were checked by local dinosaur nerd and biologist, Dr. Michael Michael. So there is some hope that all 17 species of dinosaur depicted are not embarrassingly inaccurate. This means FEATHERS (where appropriate).