Off Balance + Kōkōwai
25 July—14 August
This exhibition features new work from two of Artis Gallery’s represented artists, Fiona Garlick and Aroha Gossage. Fiona’s bronze sculptures are mainly focused on a postcolonial landscape and the tensions between introduced and native fauna within New Zealand. Aroha’s paintings utilise the technique of mixing kōkōwai, a red clay, with oil paint which she collects from her hometown of Pakiri.
Image: ‘Whenua’—Aroha Gossage; ‘Piwakawaka and the Pinecone’—Fiona Garlick
Fiona Garlick—Off Balance
Born in England, Fiona lived in Kenya and Zimbabwe before immigrating to New Zealand in 1976. Based in Arrowtown, Otago, Fiona’s focus as a sculptor is predominantly in bronze. After 15 years based in the UK as a documentary producer and director, Fiona attended Falmouth College of Art where she made her first bronze medal – The Wave. This work won the British Art Medal Society Student Award in 2005 and is held in the British Museum collection. In 2006 Fiona moved home to Auckland and graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts with a BFA (Honours).
Her work is mainly concerned with the environment, referencing the postcolonial landscape and the tensions between introduced and native species of flora and fauna within New Zealand. New works cast a wry look at the naming of native birds by early European settlers.
Image: Charming Invaders
Aroha Gossage—Kōkōwai
Aroha Gossage graduated with a Masters of Art & Design (Honours) in 2015, Auckland University of Technology. Her Iwi is Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Ruanui and the hapu Ngāti Manuhiri. She has been represented within ARTIS Gallery since 2016. Aroha’s work is influenced by her home environment of Pakiri, north of Auckland—the beach, river and surrounding land.
This body of work represents the deep connections Aroha has to her taiao, the whenua, the moana and awa, her tūpuna and everything that is her home, Pakiri. The softened blend of earth-based pigments gives the images a distinctive mystique with the ancestral figures floating within the frame.
Image: Descend
