CURRENT AND UPCOMING EXHIBITIONS


INFILL

26 June – 8 August

Vanessa Crowe (fine artist/textile designer), Emma Febvre-Richards (fine artist), Kate Linzey (architect), Lilian Mutsaers (frock maker/textile artist), Wendy Neale (furniture designer) and Genevieve Packer (textile designer/maker)

INFILL is a group exhibition by the SubArt Collective, a group that stages exhibitions which interrogate the terrain between fine art and design.  After previous exhibition ‘experiments’; Showroom (2007) at Objectspace, Auckland, and They don’t make them like they used to: Sustainability in Design (2007) at City Gallery, Wellington, the group presents a collaborative installation in The Suter’s wooden floor gallery. INFILL investigates the contemporary suburban experience and plays with the similarity of proportions between the Original Gallery and the 1/4 acre section.  Individual pieces of work will form a body that creates a relationship between the organic and the architectural and suggests that 'inhabitancy' involves a desire to control and contain our environment, as well as a need cultivate a sense of place and belonging.

Supported by Bluebridge Cook Strait Ferry and Switched on Gardener Indoor Growing Specialists


DIASPORA

PLURALISM AND SINGULARITY
31 July – 12 September

Gretchen Albrecht, Tony Lane, Richard Lewer, James Ross, Fiona Pardington, Denis O’Connor
This exhibition brings together the work of six very different New Zealand artists. They work in a variety of media, covering the spectrum of current art approaches: drawings by Richard Lewer and sculpture by Denis O’Connor sit alongside the photography of Fiona Pardington, and paintings by Gretchen Albrecht, Tony Lane and James Ross.The title of the exhibition Diaspora – Pluralism and Singularity suggests the theme and rationale for the selection, while Peter Simpson’s finely argued catalogue essay elaborates on this very eloquently:

"So different are the visual languages employed by these artists that finding valid generalizations to cover their varied practices is a bit like trying to stretch a single sized blanket over half a dozen bodies in a king-size bed. It can’t be done. But in this very plurality of medium, mode and manner is perhaps found the common thread that connects them.... For whatever reasons, we have by now moved well beyond both the preoccupation with the national and the internationalist reaction to it. Contemporary practice, here (as almost everywhere), is simply too variable and multifaceted to be captured by any single model.” Peter Simpson 2009

A Bill Millbank touring exhibition

WEST EAST
14 August – 17 October‘

Orientalism’ is a term that is used to describe Western interpretations of Eastern art and culture, specifically that of East and South East Asia.  This was an important artistic trend in the 19th century and was incorporated, albeit, second or third hand, in New Zealand.  The Crown Lynn Blue Willow china pattern is a classic example, being a New Zealand industrial copy of a late18th century British interpretation of a Chinese design.

Unlike other trends that come and go, Orientalism remains an enduring influence in New Zealand art. West East brings together art works in a range of media that demonstrate this influence in the 21st century.  It also focuses on work by artists who have participated in the recently established residencies in Asia.  By doing so, this exhibition also considers the closer and more relevant relationships being developed between this country and the ‘East’.

FLOORTALK
Saturday 28 August 2 pm
Exhibition Curators, Julie Catchpole and Anna-Marie White, discuss the theme of the exhibition and works in the show.

DON BINNEY
18 September - 7  November

In 2008 the famous New Zealand painter Don Binney completed a suite of twenty four absolutely charming coloured pencil drawings of Auckland's West Coast, from Huia to Te Henga (Bethells). They are evocative of this much loved area of New Zealand and are magnificent drawings in themselves.

These drawings will be accompanied by text that takes the reader on an imaginary journey from Huia to Te Henga, commenting on the landmarks shown in each of the drawings. They also draw on Binney's extensive knowledge of this coast and Waitakere Ranges in general: in early adulthood he tramped and camped throughout the area, he was a founder member of the Waitakere Ranges Protection Society and he has often used his art to underpin his conservation-activist work.

This exhibition is documented in a beautiful keepsake book of the same name, which will be available for purchase from The Suter Reception.

Toured by Lopdell House Gallery, Titirangi     

FLOORTALK
Saturday 18 September 2 pm
Join Don Binney for a book reading and discussion of this project

CHARTAPHILIA
18 September - 17 October

Chartaphilia is not a real word, per se, but combines the latin word for paper with the suffix, philia, meaning like or attraction.  As a term, chartaphilia is meant to describe the affection that many people, especially artists, have for paper.  It is also an apt title for this exhibition of works on paper from The Suter Art Gallery Collection.

THE FLAME ORGAN
ALASTAIR GALBRAITH

Two extraordinary performances at The Suter Theatre
Wednesday 29 September 2 pm and 7.30 pm

Tongues of blue flame flicker in and out of racks of tall glass tubes!Discs of red-hot gauze inside each tube cast crimson reflections and cause strange waves of sound, like medieval trumpets racing into the distance!

Funded by Smash Palace (a collaboration between Creative NZ and the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology), Alastair Galbraith has led a team of glassblowers, physicists and engineers on a quest to develop a new musical instrument - the Flame Organ. Dozens of bunsen burners are mechanically linked to an antique piano keyboard with pulleys and fishing line!  More than three times the size of Georges Frederic Kastner's Pyrophone of 1869!!

Come along and hear about the ups and downs of instrument creation.Learn about thermoacoustics and its central role in Rocket Science and "Green"  Technology!!

Hear Alastair perform "Dream Songs for Flame Organ" IN THE DARK!!Play A Few Chords Yourself!!!

Tickets available from Wednesday 1 September.
$6 Children 
$12  Adults 
$10 Friends of The Suter

SPRING EXHIBITION
NELSON SUTER ART SOCIETY
21 October - 7 November

The Nelson Suter Art Society is pleased to announce three guest artists for the Spring Exhibition:

Hannah Kidd lives near Franz Josef Glacier on the West Coast of the South Island and makes life-sized sculptures from steel and corrugated iron.Jo Ogier is a Christchurch based printmaker who is highly regarded for her fine wood cut technique, ecological and conservation themes and use of handmade harakeke papers.Emily Siddell is an Auckland based jeweller and sculptor and her works are inspired by the Pacific.

HOOP
KATE WALKER
13 November - 5 December

HooP is a video work by Kate Walker made in collaboration with the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered) community in Nelson.  It documents members of this community participating in a mass hula hoop event.  Swaying hips, circular movements and shuffling feet create patterns and rhythms which create an art work about body physicality and visual spectacle.

This art work also confounds the stereotypes of queer communities.  What is the purpose of this group?  What does their action mean?  The ambiguous nature of this art work implies that something else is happening here while also extending the history of video art as a document of community based political or social action. 

FLOORTALK/PERFORMANCE
Saturday 13 November at 2 pm
Join members of LGBT for a mass hula hoop performance and chaired discussion of this art project, followed by an afternoon tea

GRADUATE SHOW
Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology
13 November - 5 December

This exhibition features a selected collection of work from graduating students of the Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT).

In their work they consider questions about contemporary society, the environment, history and self.   

FLOORTALK
Wednesday 17 November 12.10 pm
Please join the students for a discussion of their work

FLOORTALK
Wednesday 24 November 12.10 pm
Please join the students for a discussion of their work 

ARTIST IN FOCUS
at The Suter Store

JULY
Genevieve Packer
(textile designer/maker)


AUGUST
Daniel Rose

OCTOBER
Deborah Walsh