Upper Gallery
Zoë Nash - Wonderland
Twilight Sleep 2026 Acrylic on canvas 1524 x 1016mm
I have long been drawn to the weird and the wonderful. I am especially attracted to wonderful things found in the natural world, and my artistic practice continues to celebrate this through painting, drawing, and occasionally sculpture. Colourful, bright, full of detailed pattern and repetitive marks, my works initially appear playful, maybe even flippant, yet closer inspection reveals tension and contradiction. Bursting with both personal and shared narratives and histories, beauty and unease, innocence and experience, coexist.
I was born in Britain and much of my early childhood was full of walks in nature with my grandad and his dogs. He knew where the badgers lived, where foxes denned, when the rhododendrons flowered, and where the wild strawberries grew. Hours were spent happily walking, observing, poking about with sticks, and discovering.
I continue to celebrate things in nature that bring me both wonder and joy. These often help to emotionally distance us from the increasingly alarming, anxiety-inducing socio political events of our time, and return us to the innocence and simplicity of childhood - a place where the discovery of a fallen bird’s nest, or a cluster of bright, red, spotty toadstools, would instigate immediate delight and fascination. A simpler, magical time.
Still a frequent walker with dog in tow, and now an ‘improving’ gardener, being in nature remains a sanctuary for me – a place for quiet contemplation and reflection – while simultaneously still being that place where an enthusiastic observer can delight in discovery.
My arts practice serves a similar function in my life. Both mindful walking with conscious observation of the natural world, and my practice of slow, accumulative creating, remain indelibly intertwined. There is a gentle rhythm and a beat to the repetitive taking of a step or the making of a mark that helps us to slow down and be present in the moment. The specimens that I choose to draw and paint are plants that I see all the time, either from the windows of my studio, or from my daily meanders in native bush and along the coastlines of west Auckland. I have had a love affair with many of them for decades.
Wonderland features brugmansia (or angel’s trumpets), poppies, nasturtiums, arum lilies, monstera, lotus, nikau, foxgloves, kawakawa, fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) and shaggy ink cap fungi. As well as delighting in the discovery of them in the wild, and lovingly nurturing many of them in my garden at home, there is an inherent danger in some of the plants I focus on that strangely adds to their appeal. While these plants are visually attractive, they also have a dark side.
With maturity comes knowledge and with knowledge comes awareness. The innocence of childhood can never be fully reclaimed as an adult. William Blake knew this. Complex narratives and histories surround many of the plants that I’ve chosen to represent. Used in medicines, in murders, in cooking, and recreationally as hallucinogens, these specimens have stories well documented in fact, fiction, folklore, fairy tales, nostalgia, popular culture, and in our imaginations. Some are considered edible. Many are not. Some are potentially fatal to eat. Like the protagonist in Alice in Wonderland, just because you are presented with a range of items that you “could” eat or drink, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you should. I highlight these contradictions through the use of positive and negative space in my work, the vibrant colours and patterns built up over time contrasting with silhouetted shapes and form. I like to explore perspective and depth in a potentially disorientating manner through my use of colour and composition.
Many of my favourite species have an other worldly or alien feel. The word alien implies that they are not from this place, and many plants that I choose to visually celebrate in my works are not native to New Zealand. Much like myself, they are ‘other’. They look strange, odd, sculptural. They protrude. They smell. They grow where they are not wanted. They take over. But, they remain beautiful, and their complexity remains a part of the wonder they bring. Zoë Nash, 30th July 2026. more about the artist
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Lower Gallery
Vicki Fanning - White Noise
White Noise brings together a series of ceramic vessels that operate as carriers of concealed language. Their surfaces are embellished with motifs drawn from the outlined forms of graffiti lettering, where words dissolve into ornament and political messages are disguised beneath decorative pattern. A softened palette and restrained graffiti-inspired mark-making create a polite surface that mirrors the sanitising and softening of difficult truths.
The work considers the ways media narratives aestheticise, obscure, and distance us from ongoing global atrocities, allowing injustice to be absorbed as background noise. These vessels hold what remains unsaid, asking viewers to look beyond surface decoration and question the systems that shape visibility, language, and collective attention. - Vicki Fanning 2026
