Our neighbourhood has more galleries and artist-run spaces than anywhere else in the country, so it’s thrilling to see even more doors opening!
The entrance to Bergman Gallery is via 2 Newton Road, just down from the Karangahape Road intersection and in a historic building with plenty of light and character. An established gallery in Rarotonga, Bergman was the first Pacific Island-based gallery to attend the Auckland Art Fair (2016) and has attended every year since, so is already a familiar venue for many art lovers. It’s great to see them in the hood. Their current exhibition by Telly Tuita is Tongpop Cornucopia, a lush and dense world of colourful textures and layers, horizons and figures. The works are painted, drawn, collaged, with photographs and sculpture all combining into a complex web of narrative firmly set in an expansive Pacifica.
Moving from Monmouth Street to 3 Water Street, DEMO is an off-site gallery run by Whitecliffe College of Art & Design for their post-grad students and alumni. The recent group exhibition, Wayfinding, has the feel of immigration and ocean voyaging, with a buoyant raft of plastic containers by Hulita Koloi and Te Ara Minhinnick, in Ana Garcia’s familial video exchanges between Auckland and Manila, and a suitcase painted with a giant eye. Sonja Drake’s 10m long watercolour strolls across one wall, full of landscape moments.
Skar Image Lab moving into 1 New Bond Street, Kingsland, has provided an opportunity for photographers to exhibit their work in the white cube of their front room. Artist Emil McAvoy curated an exhibition by Matt Henry last month called Double Grammar Zone, borrowing a real estate term and applying it to the visual grammar of abstraction and advertising.
The latest show Into the Vernacular has been organised between California-based photographer Ordinary Sacramento and Auckland-based Marc Thompson, and presents work by a dozen photographers.
What a delight to welcome more art into our neighbourhood!
EVAN WOODRUFFE, Studio Art Supplies
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