Past Exhibitions - 2022
Drawn Out
A drawing competition open to all CoCA students. Two prizes awarded by Te Whare Hera artist in residence Jess Johnson.
11 Oct-28 Oct 2022
I Will Not Speak Māori
Tame Iti and Delaney Davidson
Many will have seen Tame Iti and Delaney Davidson’s national billboard campaign, proclaiming, “I will not speak Māori.” The refrain featured within this body of work co-opts the written lines Iti was forced to repeat on the blackboard as punishment for speaking te reo Māori at school. In this new iteration, Iti and Davidson repurpose this polemic slogan once again transforming it into a prompt for reflection and dialogue.
11-30 September 2022
Hell Bent
Russ Flatt
Russ Flatt (Ngāti Kahungunu) makes carefully staged photographs utilising a range of modes and points of view in order to recover and reconstruct memories and past events. His work addresses notions of identity and looks towards a re-imagined past in order to recognise the present.
At a time when one-in-five young LGBTI+ New Zealanders has attempted suicide, and when many Māori and Pacific religious leaders appear to be promoting homophobic messages, photographer Russ Flatt explores the fractured relationship between LGBTI+ culture and evangelical Christianity.
Recently, Australian rugby player Israel Folau felt compelled to preach homophobia on his social media platforms. Similarly, New Zealand netball player Maria Folau’s support for her husband’s views resulted in public outrage and division on both sides of the Tasman.
At the same time, Brian Tamaki’s apology to the LGBTI+ community for decades of homophobic preaching – seemingly timed to coincide with the launch of a political party – was undermined by his subsequent denial of the existence of Trans men and women.
15-26 August 2022
At the Convention
Photographs by Helen Mitchell and documentary video by Tam Webster
In Halloween 2020, not quite six months after the first Covid lockdown, the second Wellington Tattoo Convention was held in The Great Hall at Massey University’s old Dominion Museum building. This creative and inclusive event was embraced as a relief from a climate of restriction, with almost as much fancy dress on offer as ink. Internationals were noticeably absent; the contributing tattooists uniquely reflected the local demographic in post-Covid lockdown Wellington.
Tattoo has been evolving from sub-culture to popular culture for at least the last fifty years. Commissioning artworks from tattooist was mainstream in the late twentieth century and has continued to define relationships in contemporary tattoo practice. Tattoo conventions like the Wellington Tattoo Convention reflect ongoing mainstreaming of the practice and provide opportunities to engage with and contribute within the community. I’m interested in how work at the Tattoo Convention speaks to themes of augmented identity and cultural exchange.
8-29 July 2022
AND YOU CAN’T QUITE REMEMBER HOW YOU GOT HERE
ALI MASLEN
ANGERLIA OLIVER
CIARAN BANKS
ELLA HARRINGTON KNAPTON
HANNAH GREENWOLD
JAC TRĮNH
OLIVIA SILBY
COCO SARGENT and KATA BROWN
Framed by Ali Maslen’s writings, this exhibition is a consideration of routine, ritual and repetition. The works examine art practice as a form of introspection, engaging with therapeutic ideas and reflection. And you can’t quite remember how you got here, encourages us to turn inwards, reflect on what we bring into our lives, and what we are putting out into the world. A point to stop and rest as you sit with the artworks. An exploration of method and what it means to produce art from a personal place.
22 June — 1 July 2022
Before
Kate Te Ao
Te Ao locates her sculptural practice in relation to notions of anti-form as discussed by Robert Morris. Rather than being a direct or didactic expression of ideas, her sculptural works occupy a processual and generative space in which materials, space and symbols combine to open imaginative territory.
As part of this exhibition Te Ao has commissioned a new piece of poetry by Ashleigh Young. The exhibition takes its name, Before, from the title of Young’s poem.
Young is the author of two poetry collections, Magnificent Moon and How I Get Ready, and one essay collection Can You Tolerate This? She works as an editor at Te Herenga Waka University Press. Her recent writing has appeared in The Spinoff, Woman Magazine and The Guardian. She blogs at eyelashroaming.com
12—27 May 2022
Passing
Jane Wilcox
Ginell Sim
Connah Podmore
28 March - 8 April 2022
This exhibition draws together three artists, Ginell Sim, Connah Podmore and Jane Wilcox, all working in different media, but dealing with all or part of, the passing of light across a surface, of passing from this world and the passing of time.
Ginell Sim’s Grave Blankets. These works show a series of large cyanotype prints. The works exhibited play with light and its obstruction as a way to record and connect with those who have passed on, contemplating light, shadow, life and death. For this project the chemical coated fabric was laid on the grave sites of the artist’s family members and exposed to the sun. The visible imprints made from flowers is a result of the obstruction of light. This negative image allows a window to the soil below while the positive image records all above, allowing the most opportunity for the recording of spirits.
@ginell_sim
Connah Podmore presents a series of drawings of stripped-back night-time scenes. This series continues from an established line of work investigating interior surface, light and shadow. Although these scenes are taken from her family home, usual indicators of inhabitation have been stripped back and obscured, to place focus on the passing of light; and in doing so, she creates an almost desolate domesticity. Podmore created these drawings over a period of years when her children were young and she was with them at home and up with them late at night. This series is a reflection on that time, and aims to draw attention to the beauty and depth present in the ordinary and unremarkable.
@connah.podmore
Jane Wilcox’s images are from her newly published book ‘Between Dog and wolf’. All these images have taken within this very short time period of dusk, in Wellington, around the narrow paths and walkways and the gardens, The Botanical Gardens and Wilton Bush. These are spaces that we walk through often to and from work, or to relax, play in, they are often spaces we revisit to connect ourselves to the environment externally and internally.
It is a time of the in between, of day and night, of light and dark. Every culture has myths, fables and stories around this time. Patupaiarehe, fairies, elves, mythical creatures who emerge to be seen within this very short time, away from the glare of the day but before the darkness falls. A time when birds sing, hunt, meet before darkness falls, a magical almost mystical period when time is caught before suddenly it has moved on.
@jwilcoxpics