29 March – 14 April

Adventurous Lines

 show of new works by four artists

Sally Hughes is a painter of and with physicality. An expressionist mark maker, she works her surfaces with varied drawing media to create life size animals which stare out challenging the viewer to blink. She says;

“It’s about the animal and it’s about mark making and feeling the animal. Although it is representative it’s not about realism but rather about feeling the animal. I’m looking for a gut reaction, a way of feeling the work in your body, a physical effect. It’s not just about seeing, it’s about seeing and feeling at the same time. Because I do the work life size, the size of the animal relates directly to our body size.”

When you are in a room of these works, you enter the world of the animal. Rather than passively sitting to be looked at, the look out at you and refuse to be ‘prettied up’. Avoiding sentimentality, these are active subjects, cats which might bite back……..

“Men and animals are in your care. How precious O God is your constant love.”  Psalm 36, Verse 6 & 7

Sally Hughes

Timothy Lea. Matagi – Art Inventor

Timothy uses ball point pen to fill whole sheets of paper with intricately detailed line. He has developed his own visual language which he terms Rainbow Immersion and Paradine.

“I start by adding every single item which exists in the universe from marbles to people and then try to picturise it in the smallest area possible.”

From the start of the drawing of the person the object is drawn with one line. Each stroke of the pen is one movement, a single sketching which moves from side to side and top to bottom across the page. The effect of the work which uses multiple lines to describe multiple subjects is of an optical illusion, where multi-coloured figures and images emerge from an intricate tangle of lines.

Timothy  Lea. Matagi

Susan Allwood is an artist who is returning to New Zealand in order to explore her artistic roots. Originally from NZ she has been living in Western Australia and learning techniques of dying and painting which she has combined with images from her Maori heritage to create fluid images which combine dramatic colour with shadow and line.

“In this work which I am doing now and which I bring to Aotearoa, I use designs that are sometimes nearly inconspicuous under earth pigments, mixed mediums and hues which represent the colours of Western Australia.  I am an artist returning to her birthplace, after long absences.  I am searching for the resolutions to dreams and mysterious memories. I am a person who is looking to rediscover youthful images and designs, which have become mere impressions, memories now veiled, obscured, muddied and ambiguous.

The silks are an evolvement of learning to dye and pattern naturally with plant colours. Many years ago an elderly Western Australian artist friend taught me the way of painting with flowers. I also use native plant infusions in the paintings.”

Born in New Zealand in the 1950’s, but has been living in Australia since the 1970’s. Allwood has worked in many areas of the art world, including as a teacher, curator and running a studio. After two bus accidents which left her with spastic paraparesis, she lived in a wheel chair for seven months and had to give up art teaching. However, a resourceful woman, she set up her own ‘Talking Cat Studio and Gallery’ in her home, and now runs exhibitions and focuses on making her own work.

“While still running my studio/gallery I joined (DADAA WA) Disability in the Arts, Disadvantage in the Arts, Western Australia, to participate firstly in their plays and performances. I joined the studio to avoid the isolation of existing as a disabled artist, and to also assist in the development of the studio with my experience in the arts and small business.

After my major spinal operation in 2005 I travelled to recover my health and wellbeing, staying with family and friends throughout Australia. In 2006, I resumed teaching part time at local community centres and began my plans to exhibit in New Zealand.”

Susan Allwood

Linda Barrow

EXHIBITION ARCHIVES

2006     2007     2008     2009