EXHIBITIONS

MANDY SOMERVILLE ANOTHER SIP 11 FEBRUARY - 1 MARCH

Medieval style pewter vessels and old glassware are the original sources of subject matter for this work. The vessels emerge and submerge between painted layers, and the paintings are abstracted by this process. Pictures within pictures; the paintings are broken up and arranged into groups of panels which refract the overall image where they intersect. The rim of each vessel remains the integral part, as it leads the eye through fragile connections which, in turn, keep it intact. Mandy Somerville completed her BFA at the University of Canterbury in 1993. In 1994 she gained her teaching diploma at the Christchurch College of Education, and is now Head of Art at Darfield High School. She has already exhibited her work in group shows in Auckland and Christchurch. Her first solo venture was held at 'The Space Gallery' in November 1996.

EDITH VAN HAANDEL OUR CHANGING CITY 4 March - 22 March "Buildings have always interested me. Like an open picture book; they reflect our life, our history, our present and our future. These are the basic rhythms of life: flowing, syncopated, chaos, order and stillness. Like people, houses have places which express emotion."

acrylic JUDITH MACFARLANE

JUDITH MACFARLANE FACING PAST & PRESENT 4 March - 22 March Judith Macfarlane has been working as a painter in Canterbury since the mid-1940s. Judith Macfarlane has explored a variety of genres and influences over the last fifty years. She has painted in watercolour and acrylic, and worked with chalk pastel on paper, while her subject matter has varied from still-life to figure studies, and from portraiture to landscapes. Consistent influences throughout have been the watercolours of Frances Hodgkins, the still-life painting of Matisse and the formalism of Cezanne.

WEST COAST ARTISTS STRANGE TALES 4 March - 22 March

Hesler Bunny HELEN DAVIDSON

Chunking the Boyfriend SUE SYME

Humanity, and both the accustomed and inexplicable manner in which people establish communication with one another is a familiar issue in the work of West Coast artists Jimmy Cooper, Peter Tennant, Sue Syme, Irene Ferguson, Helen Davidson and Neil Ensor. Their art is often characterised by the struggle of individuals seeking to establish an intimacy with others that is just out of reach, or in a state of continually evolving weirdness. Significantly, these works are highly narrative with personal dramas that seem to either mysteriously and quietly unfold, or spill slovenly into the spectator's range of vision. Davidson celebrates aspects of everyday existence, and focuses on the mundane details of daily chores. Frequently such images slip easily from the real world into one that is familiar, yet also highly surreal. Peter Tennant's work explores the dynamics that take place between individuals as they vie to establish an intimacy and a power over one another. Neil Ensor lives in Westland and makes sculptures from found materials, including those of agricultural, industrial, and a mechanical nature... As sculpture Jimmy Cooper observed, the bent forks, car wheels, and bike spokes that Ensor utilises seem to have finally realised the reason for their existence, 'they had no choice, but to be the objects that he has constructed them to be. They had the wrong life previously.' Jimmy Cooper has been working in clay since 1982. Last year successful exhibitions at the Dowse Museum in Wellington and the CoCA in Christchurch have confirmed the popularity and strength of this artist's work. Cooper depicts a world beyond the control of humanity, as his ceramic figures gasp, swoon, and scream to be released from the domestic or emotional chaos that they find themselves in. Sue Syme's painting evokes a sense of life in the fast lane. They typically depict existence in an urban environment in which all of humanity appears to be caught in the inescapable ritual of daily life. Irene Ferguson's art is restrained and elegant, yet also touches on more profound issues about humanity. She explores personal relationships in her work in a symbolic and evocative manner. Ferguson exhibited a series of prints based on the notion of falling at the Salamander Gallery last year. These images touched upon the uneasy feeling of the helplessness realised in dreaming, and suggested an emotional sense of loss and powerless.

JAMES ROBINSON WIERD & QUIRKY BASTARD ART 25 March - 11 April JAMES ROBINSON He kept saying there's something wrong wif me Enamel on paper, 1997

(This exhibition contains language which may be offensive to some viewers, and is unsuitable for younger audiences). I have always wanted to be an artist since I was a kid. I've only been to a small art school at Hungry Creek, north of Auckland, in the bush. The school allowed me room to be myself, creatively. I process Hurt and Distress a lot, in a cathartic manner, and I don't try to edit the way it really is in me. It's sometimes scary to show myself to others, but my creativity demands that I move beyond my fear, and turn myself inside-out. If we can't "let it out" and just "be ourselves" then mental disease, addiction, and self destruction will percolate. My art navigates its way through these conditions, letting the dark, humorous and disturbing shine through. I know it's there, and it might even be my friend, if I let it. Cynical, self-referential, childlike drawings are my thing at the moment, but I have recently been introduced to drypoint etching. The show at CoCA will contain these small new works in black and white, along with some larger paintings. I hope you enjoy them.

GROUP SHOW NATURE THROUGH THE FRAMES OF CULTURE 15 April - 3 May Images based upon the landscape are as much an expression of the artist's identity as they are of a particular place. This exhibition of contemporary landscape takes its title from an article by Francis Pound, 'The Real and the Unreal in New Zealand Painting,' (Art New Zealand 25, 1982, pp. 42-47). Pound maintains that a landscape painting provides as much information about the culture that describes it, and the artist and their education, as it does about the view, or place that it is recorded. "Nature Through the Frames of Culture" also emphasises the ongoing presence and importance of the landscape in New Zealand art. As Stanley Palmer suggests in 'Land and Deeds,' the land is a metaphor for ourselves, "reflecting our own experiences and perceptions." This exhibition highlights the enduring spirit and life of the art of landscape, by contrasting the divergence of response from six New Zealand artists. "Nature Through the Frames of Culture" features the work of M.T. Woollaston, Graham Sydney, Alan Pearson, Stanley Palmer, Gerda Leenards, and Graham Bennett.