While the negative connotations of isolation currently plague most of us, for artists the opportunity to dedicate weeks alone on the wild west coast is a boon for their creative drive.
Grey is the place in Grey Lynn where artists and arts organisations can present exhibitions, run by the effervescent Jade Bentley, who also owns Art Associates. Last month, Grey hosted a show by the 2021 Karekare House Artists in Residence: Heidi Brickell, Peata Larkin, Tira Walsh, Richard Adams, Louise Menzies, Reece King and Wanda Gillespie.
The Residence is a partnership between Eden Arts Trust and Karekare House Trust operating since 2017, and offers artists a three month stay in the historic home of author Dorothy Butler.
To remain creative, it’s important to have time for the mind to wander. The landscape at Karekare is made for blowing the cobwebs away, with its prevailing winds singing against the stony cliffs, and the drama of the Tasman walloping the black sands.
Its histories are just as dramatic, with early 19th Century battles between Te Kawerau and Nga Puhi, the Kauri logging, and here is one of the few places where pre-European textiles have been preserved.
All this is potent inspiration for artists. Heidi Brickell worked with rimurapa “bull kelp” in a playful way, yet the resulting sculptures represented ties to her tipuna and their relationship to the sea. Her canvas works feature stitched fabric pieces in sandy colours and swirls reminiscent of waves.
Wanda Gillespie created counting tablets with the Kauri cone pattern as a central design, suggesting the elasticity of time spent on the shore. For Peata Larkin in her net-like artworks, her frame of mind was at the forefront, suffused in the golden-yellow glow of her “happy colour”.
This exhibition demonstrates the work of artists given the time to think and feel their way into fresh work. Splendid isolation indeed! (EVAN WOODRUFFE, Studio Art Supplies)
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