An exploration of multi-rhythmic abstraction, in oil, acrylic and watercolour.
+
Also showing a series of monotypes by Maggie MacGregor - Tree marks.
Float, Glide, Echo evokes the movement and reverberations of water through an exploration of multi-rhythmic abstraction. The paintings hover between water and atmosphere, where forms, colours and rhythms are in constant flux.
A recent residency in Korpo, in Finland’s Turku Archipelago, heightened Penelope Civil’s awareness of water as a connective presence—linking islands, people and places while revealing ecological interdependence. As in Aotearoa New Zealand, the archipelago’s seas, lakes and coastlines are embraced as places to gather, celebrate, retreat and slow down.
The project playfully investigates fluidity and the metaphorical possibilities of water—its capacity to suggest movement, connection, transformation and change. Currents, ripples and reflections evoke the shifting rhythms of thought, memory and sensation.
Water’s movement from one place to another, leaving traces in its wake, resonates with her artistic process. It is a responsive interplay of chance and intention, with each painterly action affecting or echoing those that came before. The paintings seek to bring contradictions into coexistence, resist fixed meanings, and embrace fluidity as an open and inclusive way of thinking. This allows space for difference, multiple perspectives and varied ways of seeing, remaining open to personal associations, memories and interpretations that shift and evolve with each encounter.
Penelope Civil has Masters of Fine Arts (First Class Honours) from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland (2022). A Bachelor of Visual Arts (Distinction) from Auckland University of Technology. In 2025 she was a finalist in the WSA Paint and Printmaking Award.
