Inland Seas                                                     
MARYROSE CROOK
11 May - 12 June 2010
		
			Perpetually coming from the Sea, 2010, oil on canvas, 1370 x 1500
You are warmly invited to meet the artist [& singer/songwriter] at the  
opening
5.30pm Tuesday 11 May 2010
At 7.15pm Maryrose and her husband Brian Crook, who are the mainstays  
of the group The Renderers will give a 20minute performance of their  
music.
The Renderers enjoys a cult following in the US with the kind of  
country music that a character from either a William Faulkner short  
story or a David Lynch film might whistle while scalding a hog. Their  
songs are alternately knuckle-white and grangrene-black. There’s a  
tincture of Mississippi carried on the Antarctic wind of Port  
Chalmers… Her canvasses are a visual corollary to the Southern Gothic  
of The Renderers’ songs.        NZ Electronic Poetry Centre
Bartley + Company Art is pleased to present Maryrose Crook’s first  
solo exhibition with the gallery and her first exhibition in the North  
Island for several years. Inland Seas follows a period of travel for  
Crook, who returned to New Zealand in 2009, after living and  
exhibiting in Berlin and then in Beijing on The Red Gate Artist  
Residency Programme. Crook started painting seriously in the mid 1990s  
and quickly attracted attention, particularly in the South Island  
where she has a strong following.  Within a year of showing her first  
paintings in a Dunedin café, she had an exhibition at the Dunedin  
Public Art Gallery. Since then she has exhibited widely and won a  
range of residencies and awards including the 2006 Wallace Development  
Award. She produces sumptuous oil paintings that have been described  
as 'immensely enticing', 'exquisitely rendered' and 'haunting'. They  
have been consistently well received. Last year Christchurch reviewer  
Andrew Paul Wood wrote in The Press: Crook’s inventiveness is  
extraordinary. Touched by the genius of Brueghel and Bosch, she  
invents fabulous entities for these scenes, livened with a fragile  
jewel like brilliance and intense colour…
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Positive review for Tuku Iho - the Maori visual arts graduates show

Liz Grant’s plants in pots from left to right – Kawakawa, Koromikio,  
Harakeke. All cast bronze, approx 1.5m high
...Outstanding are Liz Grant’s response to the painted native pot  
plants of the 19th century East Coast marae, combining her mastery of  
botanical drawing and work in bronze, their play between two and three  
dimensions and nature and culture provides a strong movement forward  
from both Maori tradition and the work of Paul Dibble....
....Arapere is one of four very interesting recent graduates from  
Massey currently showing at Bartley and Company. Arapere’s camouflage  
figures are the guardians who challenge you as you enter the space.  
Compact explosive figures bedecked with the armoury of traditional and  
contemporary Maori street culture. Playing complex games with matrices  
of pattern and shape, they carry a personal and political power.
Arapere is joined by Erena Baker showing portrait work also seen at  
the Mahara last year and more strong new self portraiture by way of a  
mihi through photography in lockets to her Kapiti Coast marae,  
mountain, river and island. A particular debt to Fiona Pardington can  
be sensed here.... Mark Amery, The Dominion Post, April 15, 2010
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Artists showing in Australia


Watch out for Brett Graham at the Sydney Biennale: 12 May - 1 August.  
A major new work will show along with the bronze stealth bomber from  
the Auckland Art Gallery collection.




Anne Noble is in Unnerved: The New Zealand Project at the Queensland  
Art Gallery until 4 July. The exhibition featuring more than 120  
contemporary New Zealand works includes six images from Ruby's Room  
and the entire series of In the Presence of Angels.


Peter Madden has a solo exhibition at the Institute of Modern Art in  
Brisbane until 29 May. The IMA has also produced a publication to  
accompany the show.





Any questions don't hesitate to contact us. We look forward to seeing  
you in the gallery or to connecting with you online.
Best wishes
Alison and the team