Bird Land: Te Kāhui Manu
From taoka tuku iho to contemporary moving image, Aotearoa’s birds take centre stage
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Exploring the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
Coming Soon
Jason Greig: Blood is Thicker
E tuwhera ana te wharetoi i kā rā e 7 o te wiki, 10am - 5pm
Ka tuwhera ki te 9pm i kā pō Wenerei
Open 7 days, 10am - 5pm
Late night Wednesday until 9pm
Uruka utukore, ahokore utukore
Free entry, free wifi
Commentary
The tide is in and the sea is like a blue mirror
I’ve always thought that if you’re a landscape artist, the working holiday must be the perfect getaway. You get to immerse yourself in an environment that may then become reflected in your art, a manifestation of your response and connection to a place. This was certainly the case for several Ōtautahi Christchurch landscape painters in the twentieth century: Doris Lusk and Onekakā, Bill Sutton and the Port Hills, Ivy Fife and the Canterbury High Country, Rita Angus and Wainui. For their close contemporary and friend Leo Bensemann it was Mohua Golden Bay, a landscape that had a profound effect on him when he holidayed there in the summer of 1965. It was a location he bonded with so much that he returned regularly to holiday and paint most summers for the rest of his life, in the process creating a remarkable body of over sixty paintings of the region.
Exhibition
Dear Shurrie: Francis Shurrock and his contemporaries
The art, influence and friendships of sculptor and teacher Francis Shurrock.
Exhibition
Leo Bensemann: Paradise Garden
A collection of Leo Bensemann’s extraordinary Mohua Golden Bay landscape paintings.
Exhibition
One O'Clock Jump: British Linocuts from the Jazz Age
Dynamic and vibrant prints from a fast-changing world.
Exhibition
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil
Exploring the relationship between tākata and whenua – people and land – through Aotearoa New Zealand’s art history.
Exhibition
Ship Nails and Tail Feathers: Historic Treasures from the Collections of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū and Canterbury Museum
The stories told by rare, extravagant – and even curiously ordinary – objects.
Commentary
Cut It Out
Make no bones about it, Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era is an exhibition I have long wanted to curate. I acquired my first print direct from Ralph Hotere when I was an art history student here in Christchurch many years ago. Hotere was the artist that piqued my interest in printmaking, but it is the Aotearoa New Zealand printmakers of the 1910s through to the 1950s that I love the most. Ink on Paper focuses on a generation of artists that were at the forefront of the medium when, following the printmaking revival in Britain, printmaking in Aotearoa was increasingly becoming accepted as an art form rather than simply a method of reproduction.
Commentary
The Gift
"I was born in Akaroa and grew up on Banks Peninsula. My parents have a farm there. I went to high school in Rangiora, then worked in Christchurch for three years before going to Dunedin. I grew up in a fairly isolated environment. In my three years in Christchurch nothing really happened to me. There were no outward changes in my life. I had no friends there. I was quite alone – and I started to paint."
Exhibition
Die Cuts and Derivations
An expansive installation by Peter Robinson sparks a collection-based look at how artists investigate and respond to space, through line, materials and improvisation.
Commentary
Ka Mua Ka Muri
Our histories are always with us, but who is telling the story? The Gallery’s new collection hang, Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection offers up a range of different perspectives on how the past and future might intersect, and invites us to rethink how we commonly see our heritage. Here, the exhibition’s curators have each selected a work from the exhibition for a closer look.