|
Indepth Arts News:
"You Are My Sunshine: John Pule, Wayne Youle, Shigeyuki Kihara, Ben Webb & James"
2003-12-09 until 2001-01-31
Bartley Nees Project
Wellington, ,
NZ New Zealand (Aotearoa)
Bartley Nees Project in Weillington, New Zealand, presents You Are My Sunshine: Recent Figurative Art by John Pule, Wayne Youle, Shigeyuki Kihara, Ben Webb & James
Morrison during December and January.
This summer exhibition showcases the many different modes of figuration in contemporary art practice and introduces three new artists to the gallery.
Shigeyuki Kihara is an Auckland based multimedia artist and performer who is
of Samoan and Japanese descent. Recently awarded the 2003 Creative New
Zealand Arts Pasifika Emerging Artist Award, Kihara will exhibit a series of
photographic self-portraits from her "Fale Aitu/ House of Spirits" series.
In each work, Kihara has reinvented herself in different guises. As Jim
Vivieaere explains in a recent article in "Object" magazine, the series
"alludes to the Samoan comedic skits that are performed by males at festive
occasions. The character of the performer becomes possessed by a spirit, and
takes on a range of gendered personas. Kihara has used herself as the object
in these works. Photographic portraits are morphed into different characters
of her construction and fantasy."
James Morrison is an Australian painter based outside Sydney. He paints
intricate fantasy landscapes in extreme detail. His work was featured in the
Auckland Art Gallery’s triennial exhibition Bright Paradise. You are my
sunshine gives New Zealand audiences a chance to view his most recent
painting. "The Council" and "Plotting" are quirky, animated and imaginative
scenes.
Ben Webb has been painting figures and portraits since his first exhibition
in Dunedin ten years ago. Arts writer David Eggleton has described Webb as
an "anatomist of the human condition… converting the dross of media overkill
into fine-spun art". Webb has recently been based in Berlin, and will next
year be living and painting in Argentina. His imagery is drawn from print
and film media, anonymous and enigmatic faces, using a rare technique of oil
and manganese pigment on canvas and paper.
The exhibition also features work by John Pule and Wayne Youle. Pule will be
showing a new suite of six drawings, which reference his acclaimed love
poetry, recent red cloud paintings and put a spin on the interpretation of
the exhibition’s namesake "you are my sunshine". Wayne Youle has now been
showing at the gallery for fifteen months and will be having his first solo
show with us in February. For our summer exhibition he will show three new
digital photographs of plastic dolls. He promises that they will be
"cheekily erotic".
IMAGE
Shigeyuki Kihara,
"Aitu" (2003)
Related Links:
| | 
|
