Sure Wealth

We have opened a new show featuring work by Charlotte Andrew, Simon Shepheard, Andrew Missen and Tom Sladden.

Charlotte Andrew has recently returned from living in the UK and has brought back a series of wonderfully whimsical material based constructs based around the four seasons.

Angel

We are showing two pieces from her Summer Series; ‘Angel’ and ‘Belladonna’. Andrew uses clothing- in this instance clothes discarded by her children……”the family walks in drops its clothes, walks out and buys some more. Sheds its skin like a cicada……”

Belladonna

‘Angel’ really soars! With a wingspan of close to a meter, the pale grey cloth requires close scrutiny to locate the beautifully hand embroidered summer flower motif at its core. This seems to be deliberately camouflaged so as to draw the viewer right in …..then, back the viewer steps to take in the whole form again, making the realisation they are looking at a pair of the artists’ son’s jockey underpants.

Andrew describes the work like this….”captured and held, the garments deconstructed enough to be pinned flat like a caught butterfly….” There is a sort of nostalgic element at play here, but the works are far from sentimental. Raising children in a foreign country has been all consuming for the artist, but these works offer a view forward not back. The lightness, sleight of hand and wit employed, reveal someone on the lookout for new terrain to stake out.  What has been before can now become grist for her creative mill as she moves into the next phase of her life.

Tom Sladden has produced a rocket. ‘Sure Wealth’ has been on the drawing board for several years and has gone through many transformations. Here’s what he has to say about it ;

Sure Wealth

“…the first attempt was a series of bolted together ‘failed’ paintings that were configured in a vertical fashion to form an Apollo-esque structure. The idea being the whole is greater than the sum of the parts … I was interested in proving that success can often be attributed to a series of failures so long as you keep heading in the right direction.

Over time the work has transformed- parts were lost or used elsewhere, I introduced the ‘Lady Luck’ fortune reader component and the whole thing took on more of a ‘product’ like feel. But at its heart the work is still about scrabbling together a solution from what is at hand- and aiming high…”

Andrew Missen’s ‘1970’ is blooming off our east wall. Beautifully constructed from Holden bumpers, ‘1970’ is a bit like Charlotte Andrews’ pinned butterfly clothing, except in this case it is like a giant chromed ‘pressed flower’ from an earlier time- come and check it out!

1970

Simon Shepheard has sent down from Auckland two classic ‘Shepheards’ where he has intervened with two different surfaces both carrying their own history, in ‘Speakers Corner’ and ‘Post Colonial Swamp’. Simon has recently had a retrospectively styled show at Auckland’s Bath St Gallery.

Speakers Corner

Come and have a look......