https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions.atomRailway Street Gallery + Studios - News & Exhibitions2024-03-16T10:07:15+13:00Railway Street Gallery + Studioshttps://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/aotearoa-art-fair-20242024-03-16T10:07:15+13:002024-03-16T11:27:02+13:00Aotearoa Art Fair 2024Erin O'Malley
We're delighted to be showing at the Aotearoa Art Fair 2024.
Exhibiting works by Nan Mulder, Jo Dalgety, Kyla Cresswell, Prue MacDougall, and Catherine Macdonald.
NAN MULDER
(…) And from the inside, too, I’d duplicate Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate: Uncurtaining the night, I’d let dark glass, Hang all the furniture above the grass, And how delightful when a fall of snow Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so As to make chair and bed exactly stand Upon that snow, out in that crystal land! (…)
Excerpt from Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov.
It is from this point, a poem reading in the middle of a cold Polish winter, that Nan Mulder started on a series of works in which the inside world became part of the outside one. Slowly, over time, this turned around and the outside word came inside. Thus the inner room started to use the outside world to reveal something of its hidden interior, full of memories, dreams and emotions.
Landscapes too have been a source of contemplation and wonder. Having lived for many years in Scotland and Ireland, and being a regular visitor and now resident of New Zealand, Nan slowly internalized parts of the natural world of these countries. This has helped to create visual allusions of that hidden place, and explore paths towards it.
Nan Mulders printmaking practice spans four decades. She has won many awards and was namedInternational Mezzotint Ambassador, a title awarded at the IV International Mezzotint Festival, Russia. She received theScottish Arts Council Award, Scotland and theKarel Klinkenberg Award for Art– The Hague, the Netherlands. Her works are held in over 30 public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt, National Library of Paris, France, Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
JO DALGETY
Piako River, the emptying waters - is a small series inspired by research into Jo Dalgety’s childhood home, the Hauraki Plains.
A chance remark led to Jo delving into the history of the Hauraki Plains, going back much further than her great Grandfather’s arrival and knocking her ‘prosperous land for dairy farming’ narrative off its pedestal. Working with watercolour, charcoal, mono printing, and collage, Jo has begun a journey looking back into a land that once was. Her childhood home is being seen in challenging a new light.
‘Lost memories lie in the unconscious strata of mind itself, these dark, rarely disturbed layers that have accumulated, as mould accumulates in a forest, through the shedding of innumerable lives since the beginning of life.’ – Jacquetta Hawkes, ‘A Land’.
Jo Dalgety paints using layers of paper, each layer a representation of place, memory, personal history, all melting into the land and leaving marks. Underpinning her work is the hope or belief in nature, that the cycle of life will continue, and heal. That spring comes after winter.
She was a Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Award finalist 2023 and a Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award finalist 2014. She is currently completing her MFA at Whitecliffe College.
PRUE MACDOUGALL
Prue MacDougall studied printmaking at the Elam School of Fine Art, University of Auckland. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with distinction in 1985 and was awarded the Auckland University Annual Prize of Excellence in Fine Arts in that same year.
Using the Intaglio printing process MacDougall creates wonderful whimsical tableaus. Her work draws its inspiration from the likes of Spanish artist Francisco Goya and the Portuguese printmaker Paula Rego. It's their application of chiaroscuro and theatrical drama as a means to evoke emotional response that primarily interests her.
There is a wonderful sense of other worlds in MacDougall's prints. A sense of overlapping time, it is if we are looking through a macro lens at hidden worlds rich in meaning and history. The body of work titled 'Navigating Worlds' uses 'The metaphors of body-as-map and world-as-body'Malcolm Burgess. Art New Zealand No 171 Spring 2019.Elements of the natural world seem to be ever present in MacDougall's work. They appear to act as an elemental force - sometimes conspiring, playing, resting, nudging us towards an idea that we are entwined in a world that despite our assumed dominance we do not control.
Prue MacDougalls prints are held in over 10 public collections, including the Wallace Collection, The Victoria and Albert Museum, print collection, London, UK, The National Art Gallery of Australia, Canberra print collection. AU. She is also a finalist the 2024 NZPPA awards.
CATHERINE MACDONALD
Catherine Macdonald was born in Whanganui. She studied Fine Arts at Wanganui Regional Polytechnic and graduated in 1997 with a BFA majoring in Printmaking.
In 1998 she was Community Artist in Residence for the Community Arts Council Wanganui and has taken up residencies in 1999 at Pompallier in Russell and 2017 at the Art Vault, Mildura, Australia. In 2003 Catherine was commissioned to design and hand print the cover forReal Life Bird Songpublished by Wai-te-Ata Press, V.U.W. In 2014 she produced the cover for a book of poetry by Airini BeautraisDear Neil Roberts, published by VUP. Catherine has had articles published in Imprint, The Journal of the Print Council of Australia and Printmaking Today, UK. In 2001 she help to establish the Whanganui Artists Open Studios Event, working as a co-ordinator from 2001-2004, From 2004-2007 she was the Chairperson of the trust running this event. In 2002 she purchased a former church hall to convert into her studio, which she opens annually as part of the Open Studios Event.
She exhibits throughout New Zealand and her work is held in the public collections of the Sarjeant Gallery in New Zealand, State Library of Victoria and the Print Council of Australia and private collections in New Zealand, Australia and the UK.
Catherine Macdonald's work takes inspiration from her environment and its inhabitants, her drypoints capture everyday moments in time and the atmosphere around the experience. They are imbued with a sense of connection. Some of the inhabitants of her work we are aware of and notice, they on the other hand keep a wary eye on us.
KYLA CRESSWELL
Kyla Cresswell grew up in the south of New Zealand and studied printmaking at the Otago School of Art. Time living and working overseas, saw her influenced by the aesthetics of Japan and inspired by the minimal, wintery landscape of Europe and Canada.
Kyla’s delicate work explores the physical impact of the elements on the environment as well as the consequences of human occupation of the land. Working mainly in mezzotint and drypoint, she strives to find a sense of stillness and a quiet celebration of nature. Her work is firmly grounded in a sense of place.
In 2006, aspiring to develop a supportive environment for works on paper in Wellington, Kyla opened Solander: works on paper Gallery. In 2009 she was joined by two other directors and later stepped away from the gallery to focus on family. Kyla recently returned to her home province Murihiku and spent a year living in Northern Southland. Now settled in Dunedin, Kyla is passionate about printmaking she hopes to spread the wonder that is ink on paper. Little Prints Printmaking was founded by Kyla and enables portable printmaking workshops.
Kyla has exhibited in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada and her work is held in private and public collections around the world.
In 2023 Kyla was awarded the William Hodges Fellowship through the Southland Art Foundation, a 12 week residency this culminated in an exhibition ‘Tracing the Land’ in Invercargill.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/the-work-of-a-life-time-paintings-by-daphne-mason2024-03-12T08:12:39+13:002024-03-14T12:15:56+13:00The work of a life time - paintings by Daphne MasonErin O'Malley* this excerpt is taken from https://daphnemasonart.com/about-daphne-mason/
About DAPHNE MASON (1928-2020)
At 92, Daphne Mason had well over 50 years of unbroken painting and mixed media work behind her, and was still drawing up until a week before her death in June 2020.
A finalist in several major NZ art awards in the 70s and 80s before moving overseas to London, her works are held in collections across Europe, as well as in America, China, South East Asia and Australasia. Returning home again to NZ in 2003 after a significant period abroad, her conservation block in Silverdale provided the space for distilling her thoughts and giving them form.
A true colourist, Daphne worked in a range of media, yet seemed most at home with the richness of oils. Her paintings revealed an ongoing exploration of colour and its visual “weight” in the balance of a canvas, as well as a lyrical exploration of how mark making coaxes out form.
To sit with a Daphne Mason, particularly the larger works, is to enter a world where one’s eyes retrace the journey of brush upon canvas again and again. In the colourist celebrations the result is pure delight; with her more political works the result is a sobering meditative pause.
Daphne Mason was a deeply spiritual artist, and that expressed itself in her attachment to the land, as well as in her commentary on humanity. She figured in the crowd in one “Crucifixion”, and was unafraid to use self-portraits to reflect the truth of the moment at the cost of vanity. Daphne addressed the challenge of both art and life fearlessly, and with gritty good humour, or (more rarely) despair.
Daphne was part of a small group of New Zealand female artists of her generation, who began her journey with no hope that her family could underwrite her art in any way; yet she managed to persevere and overcome for nearly 50 years. After years of needing to support herself, her marriage and the birth of two children put additional demands on her time and attention, without reducing her resolve.
She began her exhibition career with a show at Hayah’s Gallery in Remuera in 1967. This was followed by shows at: Moller’s Gallery (1970 and a group show in 1971), Osborne Gallery (1971); New Vision Gallery (1975); Spinning Pot (1977); New Vision Summer Show (1977); New Vision Gallery (1981); and the John Leech Gallery (1986).
She had works selected in the following art awards: Tokoroa Art Award (1973); Wanganui Sarjeant Gallery Award for Contemporary Art (1973); Benson and Hedges Art Award (1980); and the Whanganui Art Awards, Sarjeant Gallery (1984) where she had two large works selected – almost unheard of at that time.
In 1986 the Sarjeant also gave her a retrospective, an acknowledgement of the under-exposure of female artists like Daphne who had worked largely unrecognised despite their years of solid achievement in their field.
A move to London at the cost of her spacious studio in Parnell brought the challenge of the changeable and sombre West London light and much more limited space in which to create. Yet Daphne continued to show in group shows locally in London, including the Soho Festival in 1991, and was given a curated show at the Museum of Modern Art in Wales that same year.
Her husband’s dramatic decline in health over a period of years caused her to make the inevitable choice of focusing on his care, while returning to that pattern of painting in every precious corner of time afforded to her. His death in 2002 brought to an end a partnership that had provided her with enormous intellectual stimulation and happiness.
Inevitably her art again provided a means of reflection and gradual healing, as did her return to “Whenuakura” (“precious land”), where she lived and painted with great discipline and vigour until the final weeks of her life.
Despite the challenges such a lifestyle brought, Daphne was still constantly exploring new ideas and techniques, forging new friendships, and maintaining a quality of life that is a testament to her courage and generosity.
Daphne’s late works, especially those from 2012 onwards, showed a return in terms of their construction to the themes of puzzles and implied connections that she explored in the past. The pared down approach to the canvas displays the almost mathematical precision with which Daphne went about the task of developing each work, a study in colour and balance.
Sometimes soothing or joyous, sometimes startling in their choice of colour, or almost harking back to the Art Deco tones of her Napier childhood, these works demonstrate that, in her late 80’s and early 90’s, Daphne was producing some of her greatest work ever with great vigour and delight.
Her latest works from 2016 onwards in particular, also reflect not only her connection to the land, but also her deepening concern over the encroaching property developments threatening her beloved native bush. This is reflected in the works selected for her 2017 exhibition entitled Sacred Land Collection, which ran at Auckland’s Studio One Toi Tu Gallery in Ponsonby during April / May.
You are invited to come and enjoy the work of this wonderful artist at Railway Street Gallery + Studios Exploration II Wed 10th April - Sat 27th April.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/brain-explosions-ewan-mcdougall-the-words-of-the-artist-himself2024-02-20T08:08:42+13:002024-03-09T14:04:35+13:00Brain Explosions - Ewan McDougall - words from the Artist himself.Erin O'Malley
In the words of the artist
'I prize colour, rawness, immediacy, and a good belly laugh.'
'I was an academic teaching Politics at Otago in the 1970s, but I was also a rock n roll drummer who spent many nights in pubs and I worked summers in Freezing Works.
I surfed with mates in Kakanui and on Otepoti's cold, powerful waves. I travelled wildly.
My paintings reflect the rollercoaster 'party animal' life which I led over 25 years.
In the body of the works and in the titles - they often use working class language, colloquialisms, rock lyrics and language colourful enough to match my palette.
There was manic excitement, but also brain explosions along the way, and I am a painter today because I put down the drugs and picked up a paintbrush in 1988.
I prize colour, rawness, immediacy, and a good belly laugh.
After 36 years I'm grateful I still have my own creative 'brain explosions' and they are here now for you in the wonderful Railway Street Gallery.
A special thanks and love to my darling, the writer Sarah McDougall, without whom none of this happens.'
Ewan has works in public collections including: The University of Otago Auckland Centre Collection, The Dunedin Public Hospital Collection, The Selwyn Hall O.U. Collection, The Sir James Wallace Collection, The Centre of Contemporary Art Collection, The Aigantighe Gallery Collection, The Eastern Southland Gallery Collection and The Forrester Gallery Collection.
Exhibition Thursday 14th March - Sat 6th April
Opening Event Sat 16th March 3-5pm / Artists Talk Sun 17th March 2pm.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/meet-the-artist-kyla-covic2024-02-17T15:52:43+13:002024-02-23T15:01:37+13:00Meet the Artist - Kyla CovicErin O'MalleyKyla Covic's landscapes are all about light. As we move around the edges of her work we are gently carried to an illuminated focal point with in the work. The diffused colours give her paintings a wonderful sense of movement and timelessness. The light is ephemeral, fleeting, we are held in a captured transitory moment in time. These lightscapes are not set in a specific place but the feeling or sense of place and time – many of Covic's works capture the final moments of the ‘golden hour', the last hour before the sun finally sets along our New Zealand coastline. It isthe time where day is not quite finished and night has not yet begun. Things are coming to an end, and things are beginning. There is always an invitation to look past and through the light, to discover something new.
Kyla Covic is a full time artist based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She finished her BSA VAMP mentoring programme in 2022.
Artist Statement
"The harsh, raking light and atmospheric effects found in Aotearoa New Zealand are something I feel compelled to paint. The vast, ever-changing sky and sea are my inspiration with all its dramatic changes and patterns – giving me a sense of peace and stillness, along with a sense of hope and awe."
Through my work I explore the relationship of colour and light, how light appears to shine brighter when a contrasting darkness is also present. Low light at the beginning & end of the day entrances me with the dramatic interplay of lost and found edges.
With the expansive skies, space and scale present in each painting I hope to evoke a personal response encouraging us to consider something larger than ourselves. The concept of Tūrangawaewae is also important to me and I embrace this concept with each work I produce. To have my feet firmly planted where I stand. Constantly exploring and discovering my identity as an artist and what it means to be a New Zealander.
Jan 2024 Railway Street Gallery “Dog Days” Group Exhibition
Sept 2023 250 Gallery “Studio to wall” Group Exhibition
June 2023 Railway Street Gallery + Studios “Edge of light” Solo Show
March 2023 Railway Street Gallery + Studios “To sit beside you” Group Exhibition
Feb 2023 BSA VAMP (Visual Arts Mentoring Programme) Group Exhibition
Nov/Dec 2022 Railway Street Gallery + Studios “Small Things” Group Exhibition
Oct 2022 Kings College Exhibition
Oct 2022 Railway Street Gallery + Studios “From the inside out” Group Exhibition
Aug 2022 MAGS Art Show & Catalogue Cover Page
June 2022 NZ Art Show in Wellington
May 2022 BSA Meraki Group Exhibition
Dec 2021 BSA Painting 4 Group Exhibition
Nov 2021 Kings College Exhibition
Aug 2021 Mt Albert Grammar Exhibition
July 2021 BSA Landscape Group Exhibition
May 2021 BSA Crackerjack Group Exhibition
Dec 2020 BSA Painting 3 Group Exhibition
Aug 2020 HOMEGROUND BSA charity exhibition for Auckland City Mission
May 2020 BSA Member Group Exhibition
Dec 2019 Madder & Rouge Retail Exhibition
2019 BSA Painting 3 Group Exhibition
2018 BSA Painting 2 Group Exhibition
2018 STAINED exhibition fundraiser St Paul’s Church
Art Commissions:
Current 2023 7 x 400 x 400mm Queenstown Hotel
Dec 2023 “Marama Atua” Private Collection 1100 x 1400m
June 2023 “Heading out last summer” Private Collection 800 x 1000mm
Nov 2022 “Remembering standing here” Private Collection 400 x 500mm
Sept 2022 “Soaking in the coastal light” Private Collection 750 x 850mm
Mar 2021 “Fall of Light” Private Collection 1200 x 1800mm
Nov 2020 “Tomorrow II” 800 x 960mm Mt Eden Village Doctors
Sept 2020 “After Image II” Private Collection 400 x 400mm
July 2020 “Tomorrow” 1100mm round Wiltshire Apartment Lobby
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/kirsty-black-the-playful-world-of-insects-in-paint2024-02-09T16:05:15+13:002024-02-22T08:36:21+13:00Kirsty Black - The playful world of animals in paintErin O'Malley
Chameleon Crossing 76 x 56cm Acrylic on Artist Paper 'The lollipop man guided his colourful tribe across the Chameleon Crossing.'
Kirsty Black's vibrant exhibition, "Critter Masquerade", transforms the canvas into a fictional realm where expressive brush strokes set the stage for delightful animal antics and anthropomorphic revelry.
These paintings act as gateways to a parallel world, where imagined creatures mirror the rich tapestry of human traits. Each gestural stroke and splash of layered hue contributes to the Critter Masquerade narrative, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in a joyous escapade of colors and shapes that reflect the vivacity of the animal kingdom.
The title of each work hints at the unfolding scenes during the painting process, as Kirsty Black crafts the setting for the story to unfold. Accompanied by a narrative, each piece encourages the viewer to expand on or create their own stories.
In works like "Caterpillar Fiesta," where party-goers don vibrant stripes and outrageous sombreros, eagerly queuing up to take a swing at the mulberry piñatas, Kirsty extends an invitation to embark on an adventure. Here, the traditional boundaries between human and animal relationships blur, as imagination takes centre stage. You are invited to pick up the thread of a story, imagining the shenanigans that animals partake when our backs are turned.
Peacock Top Hat 60 x 45cm Acrylic on Board 'The pea hens all agreed that the peacock top hats got more elaborate every year!'
In this fictional realm, the viewer becomes a co-creator, weaving imaginative tales that extend beyond the confines of reality. View the exhibition.
Come and join the party. Kirsty's show opens on Wed 21st February.
Opening EventSat 24th February 3 - 5pm - all welcome.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/dog-days-a-summer-collection2024-01-21T09:34:25+13:002024-02-06T17:58:01+13:00Dog Days - a summer collectionErin O'Malley
The days are hot and long and endless. The summer heat has reached its peak, the asphalt on the roads has begun to move and form ridges, browned burnt fields cry out to you as you travel north or inland. In the city, light tropical mists laugh and play with your hair as you move between air conditioned spaces. Everything pushes against you. There has been an unseen shift - summer is no longer your friend, its presence in your day has become ominous. You long for a break in the weather, a break in your life - these are the Dog Days of summer.
steal the light & hide it in the flowers Maggie McGregor
In this collection of works the Railway Street Gallery artists & guests have explored and responded to this period of time.
In Jo Dalgety's work titled 'Canicule', we dive into cool blue watery mark making, with Ewan McDougall's painting 'The Deep' we join others in the madness of the heat and let the crazy begin. The soft woven textures of Fiona Cable's work point us toward the land, it's need for water and care. These works are beautiful places to visually rest in the exhibition. Emma Hercus' 'Freddy" tries to find shade from the heat under the branch of a Kowhai tree. All of these works are very much a New Zealand response to the Dog Days of Summer, where we wilt in temperatures over 27/28 degrees.
I love reading the writing of some of the American writers whose overheated summer settings play havoc with the lives of their characters :
'It was a time when everything you once suspected might go wrong suddenly did. For miles in every direction people just snapped. Lovers quarrelled in bedrooms and parking lots, money was stolen, knives were pulled, friendships that had lasted a lifetime were destroyed with one harsh word.' - Alice Hoffman Fortune's Daughter
Pull me from my slumber Erin O'Malley
The name Dog Days originated with the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians; they believed that Sirius the dog star, which rises simultaneously with the Sun during this time of the year, added its heat to the Sun’s and thereby caused the hot weather. In the Southern Hemisphere we experience this period from late Jan - late March. There are several myths associated with this time in summer. it's said to be a period that can bring fever, catastrophe, war, disaster, bad luck, drought, turmoil, and a change in the behaviour of animals, humans included.
The Deep Ewan McDougall
Come and join us at the gallery on Wed evening Jan 31st 5 - 7pm to celebrate the beginning of our year and the start of this summer period. The Summer Collection is a wonderfully varied body of work and a showcase of the artists you will see exhibiting at Railway Street Gallery throughout the year - view work here.
Opening Wed 31st January 5 - 7pm
See you there
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/oh-come-all-ye-art-lovers2023-12-05T13:33:47+13:002023-12-05T14:09:57+13:00Oh Come All Ye Art LoversErin O'Malley
It is the gifting season. Enjoy wandering through our affordable Christmas selection of beautiful original art works.
These works are all available at the gallery should you wish to view them. Cash and carry.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/fluidity-paintings-by-kathryn-carter-sonja-drake2023-10-29T21:28:24+13:002023-12-04T09:33:33+13:00Fluidity - Kathryn Carter & Sonja DrakeErin O'Malley
Fluidity
1. the quality or state of being fluid 2. the physical property of a substance that enables it to flow 3. the state of being unsettled or unstable; changeable
Fluidity came about as a collaborative idea based on a shared interest in hydrologic systems and the fluid and porous way elements of our environment interrelate. The artists share an interest in the land, and their practices involve a commonality of walking and observing, then reflecting, interpreting and journaling to better understand these areas of active filtering and exchange.
For Sonja, this also involves researching the geology and history of Wairau Creek and how the health of this estuary, where urban and natural worlds meet, has been affected.
Kathryn looks at coastal landforms in different lights and weather conditions, the passage of storms and climatic change and intersections where the sky and estuaries meet the sea in Northland.
Exhibition Tuesday 21st Nov - Saturday 16th December
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/still-in-our-nature-4-intaglio-printmakers-4-interpretations-of-the-natural-world2023-10-12T15:05:14+13:002023-10-30T18:14:16+13:00Still In Our Nature - 4 Intaglio Printmakers - 4 Interpretations of the Natural WorldErin O'Malley
A liminal space - Mezzotint 2022
Nan Mulder
“We live in two worlds; an external and internal world. In my work these intermingle. Through one, I try to explore the other”
In a recent article in Printmaking Today, Richard Noyce wrote: ‘this duality forms the key in understanding Nan Mulder’s work’. The hidden ‘inside’ world is explored through nature or natural elements. It can allude to the core of the self or evoke memories, longings and emotions.
With the passing of the years that explanatory outside world has begun to merge with the lingering uncertainty of the world in which we live. The images of the glacier lagoons of Iceland tell us not only about climate change and the precariousness of the environment and the changing times we all share, but their expanse and scale invite us also to be aware of a more personal, inner and physical, changing reality.
Elsewhere Hillside III - drypoint 2023
Kyla Cresswell
‘After 16 years living in Wellington, in 2021 I moved south, first to Murihiku Southland then Ōtepoti Dunedin, thus reconnecting with my southern roots. Thinking about the value of place, I was drawn to the importance of waterways and the way they are like essential veins through the land.
I have also long held an interest in cartography and the presentation of landforms. As part of the research for the 2022 William Hodges Fellowship I studied maps of Waihōpai Invercargill and Murihiku. Maps locate personal histories, show us how nature or human intervention has reshaped a place. Maps simplify waterways to outlines and lines, bush to colours or basic shapes. I am drawn to these essential graphic motifs. Islands of bush in vast areas of development create an organic form distinctly different to the hard lines of planned land use, highlighting the preciousness of this vegetation.’
Kyla Cresswell's practice relates back to the land. It is grounded in the space where she stands. Her work over the past two decades has often reflected on challenges faced by the natural environment, focusing on nature’s fragility, tenacity and resilience.
In mezzotints and drypoints she has been exploring the shapes of the bush and waterways – referencing maps as well as aerial photographs. Kyla has always been drawn to a pared down aesthetic and through a variety of printmaking techniques she explores the micro and macro of our natural world.
He Listened While He Watched - Drypoint 2023
Catherine Macdonald
These works take inspiration from Catherine Macdonald's environment and its inhabitants, her drypoints capture everyday moments in time and the atmosphere around the experience. They are imbued with a sense of connection. Some of the inhabitants of her work we are aware of and notice, they on the other hand keep a wary eye on us.
‘A love of drawing brought me to printmaking and the challenge of creating fluid lines has kept me engaged with it. I work mostly with drypoint an intaglio process, it is direct, the lines you scratch into the plate make up the image.’
Save - Photopolymer Etching 2023
Prue MacDougall
Elements of the natural world seem to be ever present in MacDougall's work. They appear to act as an elemental force - sometimes conspiring, playing, resting, nudging us towards an idea that we are entwined in a world that despite our assumed dominance we do not control.
A recurring motif in the work is the incorporation of folklore and fantasy. These other world inclusions evoke within her work an ancient and mythical atmosphere. She enjoys juxtaposing recognisable forms within unusual and often magical contexts. Her current focus is on the significance of trees for humanity, emphasising their essential role in fostering our well-being and sense of connection to our place in the world.
Prue MacDougall’s artistry is a fusion of photography, hand-drawn elements, and collage. Her pieces are characterizedby a rich tonal range, featuring deep, velvety blacks that stand out against the stark white of the background paper. Prue honed her skills in etching with zinc plate and nitric acid at the Elam School of Fine Arts. However, she has recently transitioned to using photopolymer plates. These are steel sheets coated with a light-sensitive polymer. The process involves placing a positive transparent film of artwork on the plate and exposing it to ultraviolet light.
Opening Event Thursday 2nd November 6-8pm
Exhibition Tuesday 31 October - Saturday 18th November
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/meet-the-artist-kathryn-carter2023-09-19T07:50:56+12:002023-09-19T08:58:22+12:00Meet the Artist - painter Kathryn CarterErin O'Malley
"I am drawn to the land and light , its effects on the sea and sky and how beautiful and fragile it is changing in an instant."
Kathryn Carter captures in her paintings the ephemeral nature of light as it shifts through the day altering space and landforms. Kathryn has always been drawn to colour and this attraction is evident in her art practice. The bright crisp clear tints present on a summer's day through to the moody muted shifting tones seen at dusk.
Kathryn draws and paints from observation in situ. She has two studios - one in Tamaki Makarau Auckland and the other in Te tai Tokerau Northland.
She is a registered architect completing her degree at Auckland University School of Architecture where she won the Vernon Browne Memorial Prize for drawing. Her painting has won national art awards including first place in the Marlborough National Art Award, and has been a finalist with four of her works three times in the National Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award and a finalist in the Waikato Art and Waiheke Art Awards .
Kathryn paints on archival paper, stretched linen and panel.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/the-heart-is-an-octopus-new-paintings-by-emma-hercus2023-09-18T21:26:58+12:002023-10-08T16:51:38+13:00'The Heart is an Octopus' - New paintings by Emma HercusErin O'Malley
The Heart is an Octopus
The sea is an integral part of who we are as people. We breathe it in, and it gives us energy. Its sparkly depths entice us towards it, to dive into and explore. It provides us with food and everlasting beauty. In this exhibition Emma and Michaela have looked at the ways in which we relate to the sea and its creatures. The paintings and poems were dreamed up on countless dog walks along the coast. Watching gannets diving for food, seagrass waving in the water, catching fish in the rock pools and popping seaweed underfoot. What would it be like to be part of the ocean, to live in the water and fall in love with an octopus?
Emma’s paintings have been inspired by Michaela’s poems and vice versa. Bouncing ideas off each other and sharing how the sea intrigues us as individuals.
Poem - Michaela Keeble
like an octopus
the heart muscles its way out
makes it way along the seafloor
the heart is an octopus
too clever for its own good
the heart has a head
and sends out pain signals
the heart is governed by legislation
that only goes so far
i am already dying like an octopus
but i will also live like an octopus
puzzling my way out of the cage
when i fight i fail
my brain is big and my teeth are small
my heart has eight limbs
puzzling and reaching
sometimes at the centre
there is negative space
i am mounding up home
hiding from sharks
Emma Hercus art bio
Born in Aotearoa, NZ.
Winner of the New Zealand National Contemporary Art award 2022.
Emma’s work is a fusion of imagination, vague memories, dreams, history and legends. Of people met in the mind’s eye and folk known for years. Each piece has a vague story for the viewer to conceive. Each viewer tells a different tale.
Emma’s use of paint is experimental and purposely accidental. Layers of colours, textures, and patterns. Frequently she paints over a painting creating a murky history underneath that peeks through. Building up a narrative of ideas and concepts that give the viewers glimpses of a mythical and magical world that lives around and within all of us. Using strongly intentional strokes of the brush that leave a rough texture, pushing and pulling the paint, scratching, and scraping it back.
Growing up in rural Aotearoa, inspiration is often taken from childhood memories and dreams. The common thread throughout Emma’s work is that we need to take care of our place and its creatures, to celebrate both those we still have and those which survive only in books and artworks. ‘To make people smile’.
Show Opening Tues10th - Sat 28th October
Opening Event: Thursday 12th October 6-8pm Meet the artist & poetry readings by Michaela Keeble.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/marking-time-with-tina-frantzen2023-09-13T07:30:16+12:002023-09-20T21:56:39+12:00Marking Time with Tina FrantzenErin O'Malley
There has been a shift for Tina Frantzen in this body of work. Frantzen has always painted intuitively, her process always makes room for the unknown, but instead of her familiar emerging figures Frantzen has allowed memory room to explore the light and sense of two places, Santorini and Istanbul. Using pastels, charcoal, paint and inks Frantzen explores the recognisable architecture - the curved roofs, ascending minarets and captures the atmospheric quality of each place. Hazy heat emanates from her small Istanbul pieces while cool sharp surfaces rest on her Santorini canvases. Each work represents a pivotal point in time for Frantzen.
Tina Frantzen – Artist Statement
'In this new body of work titled “Marking Time” I revisit through my paintings, a life changing journey to the other side of the world. Nearly 30 years ago I made my way to Greece & Turkey. This was a journey about reconnection, self-discovery, and honoured promises. Both Santorini & Istanbul are still so profoundly engraved in my mind, the experience of the two places are strong reference points in my life. This body of work captures this sense of place, memory and those moments in time.
The Santorini paintings explore the dry white heat and immediate coolness of sharp shadows – the brilliance of a glimpse of sky and indigo sea viewed from the low lit cave house walls. Rest and solitude are explored in the palette, composition and mark making of these works.
In contrast Istanbul painted from memory has been a different experience to the disconcerting reality. With distance and time, a new memory – sense of place has emerged from the nebulous mysterious shadows that cling to its surfaces. It has become a place of my childhood stories. Enchanting, imposing, rich in colour and history. Inviting but distant, never quite within one’s grasp. These loosely lined, washed works invite you to enter the woven stories of old. The weight and mystery of them.'
Exhibition opens Tuesday 19th September - Saturday 7th October
Opening Event Saturday 23rd September 3 - 5 pm. Come and join us for apple tea, baklava and Turkish delight.
All welcome.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/studio-to-wall2023-09-04T08:30:00+12:002023-10-12T08:19:29+13:00Studio to Wall - group show of Railway Street Gallery artistsErin O'Malley
A pop-up show at 250 Ponsonby Rd, Ponsonby, Auckland 1011, New Zealand
Exhibition Wednesday 20th September - Saturday 8th October
Artists: Ann Everard, Jo Dalgety, Karen Covic, Linda Gair, Maggie McGregor, Kyla Covic, Maria Owens, Olivia Courtney, Prue MacDougall, Sonja Drake, Tina Frantzen, Kathryn Carter, Peter Atkinson, Paul Screach, Kirsty Black, Erin O'Malley.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/meet-the-artist-sonja-drake2023-08-26T12:24:47+12:002023-09-19T08:54:46+12:00Meet the Artist - painter Sonja DrakeErin O'Malley
Artist Statement - Sonja Drake
'When everything is connected to everything else, for better or for worse, everything matters.' - Bruce Mau
'My work explores areas where land meets water and the patterns and rhythms of life where waters path flows. Above and below the surface of the land, in the waterways, aquifers, and the sea and in the bird, insect and animal life, there exists a woundedness. Visiting and exploring sites relevant to my settler heritage, my practice ties into processes of colonisation, settling and unsettling.
Through the medium of painting I tell a story from my own perspective as a unsettled settler. Through observing and listening to the land, gathering personal and family experiences, histories and broader research I have endeavoured to build a map of interwoven threads. These threads seek to communicate my experience and evoke a sense of what its like to be there.'
Sonja is now based in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland. She has exhibited in a number of solo and groups exhibitions and has received many art awards. Check Sonja's CV.
Sonja has an MFA (Honours) from Whitecliffe College of Art and a BFA from Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland.
She has a show coming up at Railway Street Gallery + Studios at the end of November.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/a-passion-for-paper-new-works-on-paper-karen-covic-maggie-mcgregor2023-08-16T13:55:14+12:002023-08-28T12:14:46+12:00A passion for paper - new works on paper - Karen Covic & Maggie McGregorErin O'MalleyAlone in the long Grass
(you should've left the light on)
Karen Covic - Upper Gallery
These new paintings by Karen Covic explore the quiet dignity of wild flowers, their resilience and ability to grow and prosper often without attention - she has overlain these beautiful watery florals with raw childlike frenetic mark making inviting us to consider how the human experience of pain can exist beside beauty and how this beauty can nurture and soothe.
The works began their life in response to the passing of Sinead O'Conner and the retelling of her mother's punishment of leaving her out in the garden for long periods of time.
'These works are inspired by trees: the fragile lines bright against the sky, the twisted humps of bark, the jutting of branches and the soft clots of colour falling down the hillsides. Fundamentally however they are about mark making - the physical act of applying medium to paper.
Scraping, manipulating and printing ink on a press; building deliberative brush marks and smudged charcoal lines; repeating, erasing and reapplying. The process guides the work and becomes a way of understanding what is being seen.'
Both Karen Covic & Maggie McGregor have chosen to work on paper for this show. The papers used are archival and acid free. Most of the works are framed.
We invite you to come and enjoy these works at our opening event on Saturday 2nd September 3-5pm. All welcome.
'In making these paintings I wanted to relinquish control as much possible allowing natural processes to predominate. By eliminating the ‘hand of the artist’ I have attempted to reflect some aspects of the hidden physical world in which we live.
In this series, I wanted to explore this hidden world at the edges of direct human experience, observation and influence. At one end of the scale we are reliably informed of the existence of sub-atomic particles, molecular, cellular and microscopic processes. At the other end we grasp to comprehend cosmic scale, the multiverse and infinity. We live in a narrow band within this spectrum and turn to physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology to explain the nature of things.
At an everyday level, reproduction, crystallisation, combustion and decay are some examples of processes that create and destroy. I am also interested in the concept of entropy when defined as a ‘gradual fall into a state of chaos or disorder’. Scientists tell us this is the natural tendency of all systems in the universe.'
Paul Screach 2023
Paul Screach, through his painting process, has endeavoured to mirror and capture the hidden nature of things. As the paint is poured onto the canvas and pools, new pathways are formed and connections are made. Scale plays an interesting role in Screach's work. Large expansive works that lead us outside the canvas edge into empty space - asking us to consider what surrounds us that we cannot see, what lies unseen in the invisible spaces. These paintings are shown next to smaller intimate works exploding with organic shifting shapes. There is a sense of looking through a microscope at a living cell or through a telescope to the inner world of an exploding star. Alongside Paul Screach's work you can view Prue MacDougall's current work Leaf/Let.
A 1901 postcard using a pūwharetāiko, muttonbird scrub leaf, has inspired a new series of works for Prue MacDougall. Integrating seamlessly, MacDougall’s whimsical imagery embeds directly into the leaf sending a visual message out to the world literally and metaphorically. This concept allows her to connect her obsession with the natural world, intaglio print making and folklore together.
The natural world has been a source of inspiration for artists since time immemorial. For MacDougall it is a running thread that links together her earliest work to this current series. Each leaf holds a conversation with the ecology of place and people of place. Whether it is imagery reimagined from Migrating Birds or Anchor Me, MacDougall explores themes of journeying, both physically across the world and chronologically through time, and the effect such journeying has on one’s sense of identity.
Working directly on the leaf MacDougall deliberately explores the ephemerality of the natural world and exposes us to the fragility of nature in a rapidly changing environment. The delicate, detailed imagery melds deep in the veins and creases of the oval leaf. Her selection and placement of image to leaf is thoughtfully considered, revealing a sense of deep care and respect for nature.
MacDougall loves old stuff with a history — flea markets are her favourite haunt for hidden gems and inspirations. She also appreciates all things handmade passed down from generation to generation. Hence her interest piqued on discovering the 1901 ‘postcard’ on a recent trip to Stewart Island.
Utilising tree leaves as a writing material has been around for centuries. India and Southeast Asia recorded Buddhist scriptures, law, biographical information, and Sanskrit literature on leaves as early as 500 BC. Locally Māori originally used pūwharetāiko leaves to wrap food or carry a poultice for wounds. Early European settlers noted the quality of the leathery muttonbird scrub leaf, adopting them for note paper.
The humble postcard has a practical origin dating back to the 1860’s. A professor of Economics from Vienna, Austria pointed out that the time and effort involved in writing a letter was out of proportion to the size of the message sent. He suggested that a more practical and cheaper method should be implemented for shorter, more efficient communications. Hence the postcard was invented. By the turn of the 20th century postcards became a craze. Tourists visiting the coastal areas of the lower South Island where the rigorous pūwharetāiko tree thrives, wrote on the leaf, attached a stamp and posted them from Paterson Inlet Post Office on Stewart Island to addresses on the mainland and abroad. According to NZ Geographic the NZ postal system did not appreciate this innovative medium. A 1906 circular advised that “the transmission of tree-leaves posted loose and bearing written communications to the United Kingdom or to countries in transit through the United Kingdom is forbidden”. In 1912, the ban was upgraded to include “any address”, then finally in 1915: “Loose tree-leaves are prohibited, and if posted, are to be sent to the Dead Letter Office for disposal.” You may not wish to test NZ Post current regulations by posting an original artwork by MacDougall, although it is tempting to see if the Dead Letter Office still exists!
MacDougall’s imagery fits snugly on the muttonbird leaf, providing us with more than a short message traditionally associated with a postcard. It is more a journey of discovery and delight, little gems of humour intermingle with more serious tones of the urgency. The need to consider trees as essential to our sense of well-being and to our feelings of rootedness. A celebration of the wonder that lies in our everyday experience. Legends and mythologies are full of trees that comprehend and articulate the meaning of existence and MacDougall’s work is imbued with it here. Hopefully, visitors will leave the exhibition with a renewed sense of appreciation for both the beauty and complexity of these indispensable living organisms. Words by Fiona Cable.
There's an interesting conversation to be had between these two bodies of work. MacDougall's decayed pressed leaves with their transparent veins - channels once filled with water and minerals, transporting life. These mirror the uninhibited unpredictable marks left by Screach's painted cellular universe. Nature, decay, entropy, life ... we invite you to come and enjoy the connections.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/two-artists-and-their-abstract-expressionist-journey-paintings-by-olivia-courtney-maria-owens2023-07-06T11:53:48+12:002024-01-23T10:11:33+13:00Two artists and their journey into abstract expressionism. Paintings by Olivia Courtney & Maria Owens.Erin O'Malley 'the one rule is no rules.' - Helen Frankenthaler
Olivia Courtney & Maria Owens are two artists - painters, who capture with gestural brushstroke and colour the emotional landscape of a moment in time. Rather than present us with the painted reality of an experience, they have relied on abstraction, the process of painting itself to help them make connections to memory, to communicate the depth of their feelings in relation to this placed point in time.
Both artists approach this abstract expressive process in different ways. Owens marks are more frenetic, they convey an energy that often demands we take note of the journey. The overlapping colour and mark making jumps out at us. Courtneys pathway to connection and memory is gentle. Swathes of tonal colour leading us into the heart of her work. On this palette the intentional directed marks and dissonant colour lead us towards understanding and keeps us engaged with the intent of her work.
Her Laden Tamarillo Tree
Olivia Courtney
Showing in the Upper Gallery
Opening Tuesday 18th July
“Her Laden Tamarillo Tree” is a body of paintings that explore and reminisce the fond memories Olivia Courtney has collected spending time with her Nana.
Memory is a recent and new direction Courtney has been navigating in her painting practice. Previously only mediating the formal language of painting through collage, she felt stuck in her work, limiting the context of her paintings to process. Revisiting memories has allowed her to gather a new language needed to create and resolve the space on the canvas.
‘Summer Holiday’ by Cliff Richard playing in the background, the gingham tablecloth at every dinner, the lolly jar! Using these memories as prompts, Courtney responds to them by extracting and intuitively arranging colour, materiality and form.
These paintings are asking you to spend time with them, each mark, movement, spread and pour. This process and these works embody a sense of feeling, a moment that is contemplative and emotional.
A Piece of Me
Maria Owens
Showing in the Lower Gallery
Opening Tuesday 18th July
Paint and sculpture, like poems and music act as a conduit to memory. The process of listening and engaging can lead to a changed state of being, trigger action or take you to place of inaction, a place of silence and solitude.
This body of work explores the inner workings of two opposing ways of being. One is outgoing, takes challenges, talks a lot and enjoys big gestural colourful paint strokes . The other enjoys time alone, quiet, calm, soft colours in controlled shapes and marks. These works explore the relationship between these dualistic forces. Bold, gestural marks break free of controlled shapes and blocks of colour. A sense of rest and unrest is present in each piece. A new energy emerges from the painted canvas and sculpted forms as these forces meld and learn to rest beside each other.
'These works are a piece of me. There is an invitation here for you to use these works to access and explore your own state of being.'
We invite you to come view and celebrate the work of these two very different artists.
Opening Event Saturday 22nd 3 - 5pm
We look forward to seeing you there.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/meet-the-artist-prue-macdougall2023-07-03T21:03:25+12:002023-07-04T09:15:48+12:00Meet the Artist - Prue MacDougall, printmakerErin O'Malley
I met Prue MacDougall for the first time in the middle of last year. I was immediately taken by her passion and complete commitment to her chosen art practice - printmaking.
Prue MacDougall studied printmaking at the Elam School of Fine Art, University of Auckland. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with distinction in 1985 and was awarded the Auckland University Annual Prize of Excellence in Fine Arts in that same year.
Using the Intaglio printing process MacDougall creates wonderful whimsical tableaus. Her work draws its inspiration from the likes of Spanish artist Francisco Goya and the Portuguese printmaker Paula Rego. It's their application of chiaroscuro and theatrical drama as a means to evoke emotional response that primarily interests her.
There is a wonderful sense of other worlds in MacDougall's prints. A sense of overlapping time, it is if we are looking through a macro lens at hidden worlds rich in meaning and history. The body of work titled 'Navigating Worlds' is a favourite of mine. 'The metaphors of body-as-map and world-as-body' Malcolm Burgess. Art New Zealand No 171 Spring 2019, are intriguing. The work below 'Queen Neptune' places the body of a women within the waters of the Southern Hemisphere. The beautiful carved comb in the shape of a ship, a vessel of exploration and exploitation has been taken from the waters and now holds her long swept up hair in place. The ship is now trapped within this womanly symbol of beauty and fertility.
Elements of the natural world seem to be ever present in MacDougall's work. They appear to act as an elemental force - sometimes conspiring, playing, resting, nudging us towards an idea that we are entwined in a world that despite our assumed dominance we do not control.
Prue MacDougall has two shows coming up at Railway Street Gallery + Studios this year. 'Leaf let' will be showing in the Lower Gallery - opening on Tuesday 8th August, and later she is part of a group show titled 'Small Holes in Silence', running from 31st October - 18th November. This exhibition features the work of 4 established printmakers. Kyla Cresswell, Nan Mulder, Catherine MacDonald and Prue MacDougall. We look forward to seeing you there.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/paint-collage-the-beautiful-work-of-jo-dalgety2023-06-05T19:23:06+12:002023-07-17T15:19:39+12:00Meet the Artist - Painter + Collagist Jo DalgetyErin O'Malley
“Lost memories lie in the unconscious strata of the mind itself, these dark, rarely disturbed layers that have accumulated, as mould accumulates in a forest, through the shedding of innumerable lives since the beginning of life."
Jacquetta Hawkes - ‘A Land’.
At its core, Jo Dalgety's beautiful mixed media work explores the markers that people leave within the landscape, and in turn the markers & memories that the landscape leaves in people.
The evolution of life is built layer upon layer in the landscape, and as people and generations, we have these layers built up within us as well.
Dalgety paints with layer upon layer of paper. The process itself representing parts of our experience, our memories, our history, all melting into the land and leaving marks.
Underpinning her work is the hope and belief in nature, in those representative marks. There is a hope that the cycle of life will continue and heal. That spring will always come after winter.
Jo Dalgety is involved in the Dornwell Studios artists' collective in Auckland and belongs to the Hikuai Art Group, Coromandel. She was a Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award finalist 2014 and currently is teaching at the Browne School of Art and is working towards her B.A. (Art History) at the University of Auckland.
As an established artist her experience and knowledge have been a wonderful asset to the Railway Street Gallery collective.
We invite you to bring this new knowledge to Jo Dalgety's work as you enjoy her current series.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/kyla-covic-the-edge-of-light2023-05-24T07:51:20+12:002024-01-12T16:03:22+13:00Kyla Covic & the Edge of Light / Jane Thorne & the Closet RomanticErin O'Malley
KYLA COVIC
Edge of Light
The harsh, raking light and atmospheric effects found in Aotearoa New Zealand are something I feel compelled to paint. The vast, ever-changing sky and sea are my inspiration with all its dramatic changes and patterns – giving me a sense of peace and stillness, along with a sense of hope and awe.
Through my work I explore the relationship of colour and light, how light appears to shine brighter when a contrasting darkness is also present in the image.I am interested in how a halo of colour often appears around a very bright source of light. I observe purple fringing and chromatic aberrations which occur when facing directly into the sun, causing the appearance of edges to shift in hue and intensity.
The concept of Tūrangawaewae is also important to me: to have my feet firmly planted where I stand .
Kyla Covic 2023
This will be Kyla Covics first solo show. I have loved watching Covics treatment of light around landforms develop and find its home in the soft slightly out of focus blurred lines. We move around the edges of her work and slowly make our way to the main source of light, the diffused colours give Covics work a wonderful sense of movement and timelessness. The light is ephemeral, fleeting, we are being held in a captured transitory moment in time. View the work in this exhibition.
JANE THORNE
Closet Romantic
Insects are the dominant feature in most of Jane Thornes paintings, she finds them endlessly fascinating with their unique shapes and colours. She is fascinated by social history and collects photos and scraps of wallpaper, using these as inspiration for new works. Pieces of this history can be found hiding behind insects, inserted in unexpected places.
Closet Romantic explores the beauty Thorne sees in these creatures and the intricate details of the nature and environment around us. She presents a beautiful intriguing view of the small things in our world.
Both these shows open on Tuesday 6th June - Saturday 1st July.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/olivia-courtney2023-05-15T15:35:44+12:002024-02-18T18:12:45+13:00Meet the Artist - painter Olivia CourtneyErin O'Malley
Railway Street Gallery + Studios would love to introduce the newest member of our collective -
Olivia Courtney.
Painting for Olivia Courtney is about challenging and engaging the viewer. Through paint and the action of painting, Courtney asks us to stop and read the texturally rich marks, to look for meaning in the brush strokes, to rest in blocks of colour and explore extending and overlapping lines. The rich textural quality of these works challenges us to slow down and allow the painterly visual cues to trigger memory and make connections.
'My practice is an enquiry into what painting can offer that screen based media cannot. My interests lie within the formal language of painting, using collage as a vehicle to mediate this vocabulary. Exploring tensions between memory, colour, form and paint materiality, I create idiosyncratic spaces on the canvas.'
Courtney graduated from Massey University with a post graduate degree in Fine Arts with First class honours. She has relocated from Wellington to north of Auckland and works from her studio in Matakana. She is a member of the Railway Street Gallery collective of Artists.
She has an upcoming show in July with fellow artist Maria Owens. We are very excited about the future of Olivia Courtneys art practice and we invite you to be part of her journey.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/chroma-the-intensity-of-colour2023-05-02T11:50:56+12:002024-03-09T20:54:49+13:00Chroma - the intensity of colour. New paintings by Carole & Holly ShepheardErin O'MalleyOscar Wilde said 'Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways'
We live in a world filled with colour. Most of the time we just absorb the colours we are surrounded by and subconsciously respond to the feelings they generate within us at any moment in time or given environment. Some colours have come to represent states of being, blue translates to peace, green - harmony/tranquility, red - danger. We can have a colour we are immediately drawn to, we experience an immediate visceral response to this colour and sometimes the opposite is also true. Recently at the 'Light from Tate' exhibition at Auckland Art Gallery, I stood within the black interior of the work by Anish Kapoor and felt physically ill. I was overwhelmed with a terrible sense of the colour or actually absence of colour, absence of light seeping into my soul. The response came upon me immediately and took me completely by surprise. I backed out of the work and had to physically shake the colour from me.
Wassily Kandinsky said 'Colour hides a power still unknown but real, which acts on every part of the human body.'
Both Carole Shepheard and Holly Shepheard explore this power in their current bodies of work.
The paintings in this exhibition CHROMA focus on highly saturated colour, exploring its depth and intensity. Both artists work in a non figurative way and through their work recognise the subliminal connections we have to 'place' and the role colour/chroma plays on our way of being. Colour, composition and meaning are symbiotic in these works. Both artists have used layers of concentrated colour to create feelings of immersion and entanglement.
We're very excited to be showing the work of these two artists. Not only is this show going to be a wonderful visual conversation between two experienced artists but for me it is also a conversation between mother and daughter. It is about heritage, the passing on of knowledge and the joy found in the process. It is about the daughter Holly who has watched her mother Carole, all her life, live and breathe her craft while bringing up and caring for her family. This way of 'being' has been embraced and explored by Holly but redefined in her own way. She has found her own creative path and voice.
Carole Shepheard is a well known printmaker and painter. Holly Shepheard an exhibiting artist who has continued working with ink and resin, a medium she discovered at Elam as a painting student.
Exhibition Tuesday 16th May - Saturday 3rd June.
We invite you to the opening event on Saturday 20th May 3 - 5pm, all welcome.
Artists' Statement CHROMA / CHROMA
“Dance the orange” Rainer Maria Rilke
For both of us colour has been a language, a means of expression and communication. Challenged initially by science, Victoria Finlay in ‘Color’ tells us colours don’t actually exist and our minds create them as an interpretation of vibrations. They are classified as ‘solid, liquid, gas or vacuum’, but as painters this does not take us that far. For Holly and myself, colour is a way to express feelings and moods, but also how we have embedded colour firmly into our creative practice as a metaphor for what we are experiencing at a particular time. It’s not just about observing beautiful things, shapes, objects or motifs, it’s about who we are and how our lives have been affected by familial, national and global events.
I began this mahi at the start of Covid, tentative and unsure of what isolation would be like and if I could maintain my practice with little contact with others. One plus of this self preservation however was a certain freedom, the other was the pervading sense that individuals had changed, families had changed, the world had changed - significantly. I was living in Kāwhia, Holly on Rakino Island, both of us aware that it might be some time before we saw one another. So we settled into another existence where making art was a choice, but not an urgent requirement. I experimented with cold wax and oil paint, then waterless lithography, Holly with resin and alcohol dyes to create depth and transparency. Both trajectories brought us together for this first shared exhibition, and an opportunity to see what each had made under the banner of CHROMA.
Both bodies of works use a high key palette, sometimes translucent, sometimes opaque. For Lost in Space I began by finding out more about pigments and colour (Holly had always been there!) and how certain colours were connected to my growing up. The pink marshmallow on my aunt’s shortbread, the moss on mountain rocks, the inky blue of the night sky. Holly was made aware of the clarity of the water she swam in, the changing weather patterns, the amazing Rakino sunsets and the unfettered flora that covered the island. Shapes that moved under water, or behind glass, or in a misty dream. For me it was a journey into space trying to understand the unfathomable concept of endlessness. The planets, stars, black holes, meteors, space junk and shooting stars are all there but alien to me physically and cognitively. Our shared approach, was to place this information into the imagination and see what emerged as we experimented with materials and processes.
Whether pigments have been dug from the ground, dyes squeezed from a bug or neon created in a laboratory, the importance of colour to describe, provoke and express a feeling is paramount. Experiencing the visual alchemy of colour is exciting and rewarding, and keeps us in the ‘game’.
Carole Shepheard & Holly Shepheard May 2023
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/all-things-painterly-new-work-by-erin-omalley-jenny-dow2023-04-14T08:12:33+12:002024-01-13T10:22:15+13:00All Things Painterly - work by Erin O'Malley & Jenny DowErin O'Malley
summer songs
A song can be defined as a short poem or a group of words set to music usually meant to be sung and when fully realised enjoyed and heard.
In this body of work I have endeavoured to compose a song made up of images from repeating marks, shapes, colours and layers of brushstroke.
If these images were words they would read as
skin seeking heat, warmed back, circling birds, wooden steps, toi toi paths, night stars, days heat, living memory, rolling silence, sun tempered eyelids, outward breath, cloud pathways, floating wet silence.
I have composed with paint an emotional landscape of what summer feels, tastes and sounds like for me. I invite you to come and listen to my song.
My paintings have always explored my response to a place, a moment in time, a phrase or word. With repeating shapes and recurring marks, these painterly worlds become open to reinterpretation. They invite you to make connections, to allow the colours to register feeling. Colour in all my work is key to meaning, it is an emotional trigger, an invitation into the sense & sway of the works.
Underlying present layers of paint are a pathway to understanding the process I take in the creation of my painted worlds.
Sitting beautifully beside these paintings are the whimsical monoprints created by Auckland artist Jenny Dow.
Just a Perfect Day’ is taken from Lou Reed’s song ‘Perfect Day’. The work is about the peace of mind that comes from an uncluttered day spent in a quiet city space, a park, beach or rural space. With another or alone.
"I like to watch people in such places and how unconsciously they get lost in their own worlds."
Jenny Dow's process - in her own words.
Monoprints: Monoprinting is a means of making stand alone images or studies for eventual paintings. I find they have a flexibility and immediacy. An image can be quickly laid down, and easily modified, if necessary, before printing. Monoprinting usually means one print - not an edition of many prints the same. It's possible to print 2 or 3 more images off the same plate, but no image is as intensely visual as the first. There are several different techniques to use in monoprinting, I use a fairly traditional one.
I paint directly onto a zinc plate (or glass or Perspex- any highly polished surface). I use brush and rags with oil based inks or oil paints mixed with Stand Oil and/or Gum Turpentine.
When the image is complete I place dampened Watercolour Paper over the image and print with either a Hand Roller or Printing Press and leave to dry.
Inks used in these prints are Flint Ink Oil based Printing Inks. The paper I use is Hahnemuhle Watercolour Board 'Britannia' 300 gsm hot press.
We invite you to join us for a glass of wine at the opening of this show
Thursday 27th April 6-8pm
Exhibition Wed 26th April - Sat 13th May.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/juxtaposed-susanne-khouri-kate-mclean-30th-march-22nd-april2023-03-21T11:50:09+13:002024-01-12T15:55:46+13:00Juxtaposed - Susanne Khouri & Kate McLeanErin O'Malley
I had the pleasure of visiting both of these artists at their studios earlier in the year. What a treat to be able to spend time with two women who live and breathe their art practice. I hope you enjoy the following conversation about their friendship and their seperate practices. I hope you 'see' them as I did.
Q & A with Susanne Khouri & Kate McLean
Q. What was it about printmaking that first appealed to you?
Kate: I grew up with a mother who painted and drew well. So I always knew I would tend towards the visual arts. Drawing has always kept me going, but painting requires a particular brain I did not have. In my first year of a Fine Arts Degree at University I came across screen printing & something went Ahhh. I was hooked. Printmaking uses a set of materials, tools, stages and processes that interest me.
Susanne: Printmaking appeals to me because of the impression which the image makes when it is literally pressed or screen-printed on to the paper and the potential for limitless variations of colour and subject-matter. Now that I know how to do it, I absolutely love the times in my studio. It is my happy place.
Q. You both have different practices - can you explain your process to us?
Kate: I take photos, many, often. I then use photoshop to work them into layers (or a dot screen for tonal values), then transfer to a screen which has been made light sensitive. After developing the image on the screen I print onto fresh clay, which needs at this stage to be flat but can be altered later. Once the piece is made and dried it is fired. The firing produces yet another stage.
Susanne: Kate and I share screen-printing as a technique, I also use zinc plates which are pitted to hold the ink during the printing process with my press. Zinc-plates enable me to create colours ranging from soft and light to deep velvety tones. The work created by these plates become the background for my screen-printed works. I have also lately begun using the gel plate for Monotype work.
Q. Where do you draw inspiration from for your practice?
Kate: I look a lot. I look with an eye to whether or not something makes an image that interests me, that might be the basis for some work. Its often something that says to me, unless you use me, I’m going to niggle until you do. I’m conscious that images from the natural world, or retro references can be beguiling and so I look for something that I feel is unique to me. I would like to use drawings more, photographs do not convey scale well.
Susanne: Inspiration for me begins with a thought or a glimpse of something, either in my imagination or in the real world. It then expands and develops as I work and rework my pieces. My works are impressions of moments of stillness and discoveries, hybrids between the real and imagined.
Q.What have you found to be most challenging about your 'art' journey?
Kate: Supporting oneself and making creativity pay. Does one do a job that pays and keep it separate from one’s creativity or compromise what one makes? Believing in oneself. Finding a thread that leads from one set of work to the next. Sometimes it feels like one starts at the beginning again.
Susanne: I see myself as an artist, a printmaker. I want each of my prints to be unique and to have an elusive “something” which appeals to me even if the work is different every time. My printmaking involves playing to a great extent and always asking “What will happen if I do this?’’ The successes are heavenly and not frequent.
Susanne & Kate met each other at Gus Fisher Gallery at 'Printmaking Beyond the Frame' in 2014. Susanne asked Kate if they could be art friends and that friendship has remained intact for 9 years. They look at each others art, they support and encourage and are inspired by each other.
We invite you to come and celebrate with us
this wonderful art friendship and their work.
Juxtaposed
Exhibition Thursday 30th - Saturday 22nd April.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/my-kaleidoscope2023-02-22T14:19:20+13:002023-03-30T10:46:34+13:00Linda Gair 'My Kaleidoscope' March 2023Erin O'MalleyMY KALEIDOSCOPE - Linda Gair
kaleidoscope - made up of 3 Greek words …
‘kalos’ – meaning beautiful
‘eidos’ – meaning shape
‘skopos’ - meaning watcher, or thing looked at
The kaleidoscope, with its ever-changing lights, colours and various shapes, represents unlimited views, opportunities and the realisation that there are more than a few ways to look at one’s own, or someone else’s creative efforts.
What do I/you see through my/your kaleidoscope of life? Do we need to twist it and look through it again and again to see something better, a new possibility and therefore something we couldn’t see before? Do we see something that feels remarkably like a glimmer from our vast memory bank of experiences and places visited?
In these (small) works, my ‘kaleidoscope’ contains panoramic views of ‘vast vistas’.
The power of my observation as I paint determines the breadth of the choices I make as I paint my works, and you (the observer) have the choice to absorb them in your own way and bring to them your own ‘wealth’ of experience.
Therefore it becomes a matter of what we decide to ‘see’ in an artwork - that I am creating and you are contemplating.
I hope to allow the observer the opportunity to see something different, a different possibility, through my kaleidoscope and as such the paintings become an extension for our collective creative thought.
Part imagination, a sense of place, and part reality of the uniquely New Zealand landscapes I treasure.
Come and share with us Linda's landscapes. Bring your own way of seeing and enjoy the work. The exhibition runs from 9th March - 28th March.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/zoe-nash-a-time-and-a-place-9th-23rd-march2023-02-15T20:46:00+13:002024-01-16T07:30:18+13:00Zoë Nash 'A time and a place' March 2023Erin O'Malley
“I love how my artworks grow and evolve with every mark made or action taken so that in the end, just like a knitted jumper, the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts.”
Zoë Nash is a diverse visual artist working across a range of creative disciplines. Her works are a colourful, playful, and celebratory exploration of mark making, pattern, process, repetition and accumulation. The works are vibrant, joyful and life-affirming. They dance between spaces, between foreground and background, revelation and concealment, then and now.
Zoë also has a strong interest in autobiography, memory and nostalgia. She is fascinated by how the sharing of stories can help us not only to make connections with others, but also gain a better understanding of our sense of self. Her works are often inspired by things seen and words spoken. Personal experiences are explored as a means of reaching out to others, hoping that they too will see in the work something that evokes a memory or tugs at the heart… a conversation that can be shared, a connection made.
With a love of nature and outdoor spaces, Zoë’s works increasingly draws on selected plant specimens and specific places as starting points. Colour is used both emotively and as a means to disrupt spatial depth. Conscious mark making is part of the intuitive process of addition, analysis, cross referencing, constant editing and refining. Works begin with no clear outcome but a firm underlying intention that drives each piece towards its ultimate conclusion.
Art Biography
Recent shows include; System and Circumstance with Linda Roche at the Browne School of Art Gallery, November 2019, Trashed As group exhibition at Corbans Estate Arts Centre, June 2019, and Slowly and Carefully, a solo show at Grey Gallery, June 2018.
Zoë is also a strong supporter of and regular contributor to community art events and initiatives. She has been creating large scale, site-specific installations at the Kaipara Coast Sculpture Gardens since 2015, and was an active participant in the Harbourview Sculpture Trails. She has participated in multiple Auckland Art Week exhibitions, and has created two major permanent public artworks for Auckland Council.
In 2022, 2020 and 2012 Zoë was a Finalist in the Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Awards, receiving the Zinni Douglas Merit Award in 2012. In 2019 she was one of six selected artists to take part in the Trashed As artist residency programme at the Waitakere Transfer Station. Other finalist nominations include: Parkin Drawing Prize 2015, Small Sculpture Prize Waiheke Community Art Gallery 2013, Trust Waikato Contemporary Art Awards 2004, and recipient of the Whitecliffe Post Grad Scholarship 2003.
Zoë has a Master of Fine Arts degree (Whitecliffe, 2002), a Bachelor of Arts degree (Auckland University, 1991. Zoë currently works from her west Auckland studio and teaches at Browne School of Art.
The exhibition runs from 9th – 23rd March.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/to-sit-beside-you2023-02-08T14:29:37+13:002023-03-13T09:48:21+13:00to sit beside you - group show February - March 2023Erin O'Malley
This group show celebrates the unique relationship between all the artists collectively involved with the Railway Street Gallery + Studios. Curated and styled by Erin O’Malley of Madder & Rouge, this show has a specific interior context. You are invited to join us we explore the conversation that often exists between art and the interior setting in which it lives and breathes.
While many interior spaces call for one large feature piece on a key wall - a painting, print, photograph or sculpture, there is a wonderful energy that exists in the grouping of many art works of varied sizes. A collected body of works placed together in a space becomes a curated work of art in and of itself.
Jean Willy Mestach, the late Belgian artist/collector wrote, “Assemble rather then collect. This means thinking of the collection as a whole, as a work of art in itself…”
‘to sit beside you’ encourages you to do this. To enjoy each work individually but to also consider the relationship of line, colour, texture, shape & theme that now exists with the works around it and the new meanings and connections such groupings of work invite you to make.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/jo-dalgety-why-do-you-seek-after-it-feb-2nd-21st-20232023-01-13T13:20:22+13:002023-02-21T22:46:04+13:00'why do you seek after it' by Jo Dalgety February 2023Fiona Cable
‘A chance remark led to my delving into the history of the Hauraki Plains, going back much further than my great Grandfather's arrival, knocking my ‘prosperous land for dairy farming’ narrative off its pedestal.’
Originally the Hauraki Plains were built up from the sediment deposited by the Piako and Waihou rivers which flow north to reach the sea at the Firth of Thames, and earlier onto the ancestral Waikato River.
In 1910, 6,600 hectares of the Hauraki Plains was made available for settlement in a land ballot at Ngatea - by 1930 around 17,400 hectares had been opened up for farming.
It was at this point that these plains, these vast areas of wetland and the kahikatea forests began their conversion from ‘virgin state’ into the ‘prosperous’ land for dairy farming that we know to be the Hauraki Plains today.
Jo Dalgety working with water colour, charcoal, mono printing and collage has begun an exploratory creative journey looking back into a land that once was. Her childhood home seen in challenging a new light.
A land just freshly introduced to her – lush and thriving. Wetlands, alluvial plains, peat heavy and partly swampy.
A land full of mangroves, raupō, harakeke and a dense forest of Kahikatea. A home for wild ducks and eels. The rich flora and fauna of the plains providing staples for the Māori people who lived in the region.
"Of what use is the land afterit is broken. When the land is broken, the owner perishes... This is my place, why do you seek after it. It is only a small piece. Let it remain to me." - Te Hira Te Tuiri
This new body of work has a beautiful intensity to it – like the alluvial plains, layers of texture, medium and colour invite you into this new narrative. The work asks you to reach out to it, to touch it, feel it, and remember it.
‘I am just at the start of this project, and this is the result of my reading and discovery thus far’.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/off-the-press-ii-11-january-27-january-20232022-12-20T21:56:47+13:002023-02-07T17:57:48+13:00Off the Press II : January 2023Fiona CableOff the Press II is the second iteration of an annual exhibition showcasing contemporary printmaking processes by artists based in Tāmaki Makaurau. The six artists featured for 2023 are: Ina Arraoui, Maree Brogden, Jude Gordon, Anita Mudaliar, Brie Rate and Rachael Schanzer. Each artist has presented a selection of recent work in response to their concerns about our inner and outer ecologies and our personal relationship to the natural world.
Printmaker Anita Mudaliar’sOrganography series, examines and deconstructs the patterns and structures from botanical and anatomical tissues using discarded plastic materials through the medium of collagraph printmaking. As a practising GP, she is concerned about how the plastic waste on a larger scale is causing harm and destruction to our ecosystems and is now also being found inside our bodies in the form of microplastics.
Also highlighting how our health and that of our environment is inextricably linked, is the work of printmaker Jude Gordon. The interdependency between the health of human and plant species was also advocated by the ancient Greek philosopher Hippocrates, which her collection of silk mezzotint, lithography and linocut makes reference to. The healing power of plants in the context of Rongoa Maori is touched on, noting that our mental and physical health is connected to how we respect and nurture the natural world.
Brie Rate’s series of woodcuts on handmade paper question our complicated existence in the ecosystem, alongside notions of slow time, mental health, and environmental responsibility. She sees paper making and printmaking as having the ability to speak truthfully to their materials and at the same time, transform our way of seeing them. Her trees are presented as living monuments that manifest dynamic relationships between humans and the living world which should be considered, questioned, and appreciated more often.
Rooted in observation, is the work of printmaker Rachael Schanzer. Her series of prints are multifaceted in the desire to communicate the beauty of coastal areas, while at the same time drawing attention to the increase of human consumerism deposited on the tide lines in recent years. As a result, she has made each work under her own self-imposed restrictions, creating her printing plates using only recycled household waste and packaging as an alert and invitation to reflect on one’s own consumerism.
Also using Tetrapak cartons and discarded nikau palms to create her printing plates, Ina Arraoui’s plant series is part of a broader interest in the symbolism of plants. The moonflower is one of many plants that has been both vilified and venerated over history for both its harmful and healing qualities. These contradictory perceptions, myths and legends are in constant circulation, shifting between the currents and constellations of our imagination and shaping our relationship to the natural world.
Drawing on her background in healthcare practice, artist Maree Brogden explores the concept of deep ecology which considers the great and small of the relationships of human behaviour and the natural environment. In healthcare practice, the great and small milieu refers to a psychodynamic life, where instinct informs survival. These reflections bear in mind an interrelatedness that has disconnection and disruption in the absence of unison. Her series of layered drypoints are visual symbols for the lifeworld great and small.
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https://www.railwaystreetstudios.co.nz/blogs/news-exhibitions/a-secret-forest-prue-macdougall-3-dec-29-january-20232022-12-01T16:55:13+13:002023-02-09T09:01:34+13:00A Secret Forest - Prue MacDougall Dec 22 - Jan 2023Fiona Cable
Prue MacDougall has turned her watchful and whimsical gaze towards the innate power of trees. Utilising Greek Mythology, she is urges us to think about the essential roles that trees and forests play in our lives and psyches.
MacDougall’s close connectivity to nature comes from a life-long love of gardening. She acknowledges the beauty and visually arresting character of plants and trees, but also considers trees as both symbols and living organisms. Concerned about changing climates, the devastation wrought by global deforestation and shrinking biodiversity, MacDougall’s diorama takes us on a walk through a forest guided by narrative threads.
The Greeks have believed for millennium that nature is positively alive with the spirits that reside there, and so does MacDougall. The serenity that comes from sitting beneath a tree on a pleasant afternoon or your racing heart beat felt in a dark forest at night are not random emotions. The trees are truly alive with more than you may prefer to believe. According to legend, the ability to inspire strong emotions was the gift of the dryads. Everywhere they and their fellow nymphs existed, they were able to touch humans with this gift.
Fascinated by the myths of Nymphs and Dryads, Prue has incorporated female deities are into the intaglio photopolymer prints dramatizing the intricate architecture of branch and root systems. As spirits of the wilderness, the nymphs and birds are protective of the forests and other beings, kind to those in need reminding us of our better nature.
A celebration of the wonder that lies in our everyday experience, here to view in miniature, in our Hidden Wall Gallery.