Shadow of figure sitting down in front of two wall size projected images of an abstract image of thousands of blue coloured lines

The Grid — New Digital Art Space

Writ­ten by Nadia Free­man Welling­ton’s newest and poten­tial­ly first dig­i­tal art space opened this month, and I am deeply appre­cia­tive of the entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it of Shan­non Bros­na­han Inglis and Delainy Jamahl. In an era when invest­ment in the arts is dwin­dling, launch­ing a ven­ture of this scale and qual­i­ty is inspir­ing. Ini­tia­tives like this infuse […]

Sacha Lees

Welling­ton artist Sacha Lees began her career work­ing on The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy as an illus­tra­tor, air­brush artist and crea­ture design­er. These days Lees, orig­i­nal­ly from the West Coast, is a lead­ing artist. She devel­oped her paint­ing tech­nique in Flo­rence and now spe­cialis­es in the “fan­tas­tic” genre — a move­ment spe­cial­is­ing in myth­i­cal crea­tures and […]

Something wonderful at The Dowse

Emma from Emma Makes kind­ly vis­it­ed and revis­it­ed  — Wun­der­rū­ma: New Zealand Jew­ellery  exhi­bi­tion at The Dowse  for us. Each time I return to Wun­der­rū­ma: New Zealand Jew­ellery I find some­thing new I want to own. It began at the open­ing with Emi­ly Valentine’s King­fish­er Brooch (2013). “Is that a bird?” said the friend I was […]

Baby it’s cold inside

A lit­tle late to the par­ty but still some­thing rather delight­ful has popped up in the city.  Cleave (a project between artist Gab­by O’Con­nor, oceanog­ra­ph­er Craig Stevens, cura­tor Katharine Allard and the amaz­ing kids from Mira­mar Cen­tral school) is liv­ing at 86 Vic­to­ria St Welling­ton until July 13 2013. It’s view­able 24/7 as it’s all […]

Towards Another (Big Bang) Theory

The images of explod­ing fuel from Geof­frey H. Short­’s exhi­bi­tion Towards Anoth­er (Big Bang) The­o­ry at {Suite} Gallery on Ori­en­tal Parade are imme­di­ate­ly evoca­tive to me of a num­ber of dif­fer­ent oth­er imageries, occur­ring in rough­ly this order: of the US mil­i­tary napalm­ing bits of Viet­nam of Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la napalm­ing bits of the Phillip­ines […]

Big Drypnz

If you’re in the mar­ket for a real bona fide “Holy shit, look at that!” expe­ri­ence, try head­ing down to the east­ern end of Abel Smith Street, oppo­site the South­ern Cross. Where on the cor­ner of Wigan Street there was once a Tat­too Muse­um (or this), with an impos­ing moai on the street front (image), […]

Double-header imminent at Solander: Works on Paper

Solan­der Gallery: Works on Paper is Welling­ton’s con­tem­po­rary works on paper gallery. I have a soft spot for print­mak­ing and being a gallery that — not exclu­sive­ly, mind — spe­cialis­es in this dis­ci­pline with a con­sis­tent rota­tion of strong shows from tal­ent­ed New Zealand print­mak­ers, Solan­der has become a favourite space of mine to vis­it. They […]

Narrative Playgrounds group show at Pixel Ink Gallery

Nar­ra­tive Play­grounds is a group exhi­bi­tion at Pix­el Ink Gallery of visu­al works by emerg­ing and estab­lished New Zealand artists. The com­mon theme of the show is that the work is inspired by sto­ries and the imag­i­na­tion. Gallery direc­tor, Ros­alind Clark, said the exhi­bi­tion is all about trans­lat­ing the imag­i­na­tion onto a blank can­vas. The artist’s brief was to […]

Jewels of Whitireia

On Thurs­day night the Annu­al 2010 Whitireia Stu­dent Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ellery Auc­tion will be held at Mighty Mighty with Nation­al Radio pre­sen­ter Kim Hill con­trol­ling the ham­mer as auc­tion­eer. Donat­ed con­tem­po­rary jew­ellery is being sent from all over New Zealand for the event includ­ing pieces from con­tem­po­rary jew­ellery prac­ti­tion­ers Peter Deck­ers, Matthew McIn­tyre Wil­son and Owen […]