Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Raymond McIntyre: A Modernist View
New exhibition now open.
Living Archives
Archives that tell stories about artists and history in Aotearoa
Whāia te Taniwha
Māori artists consider the enduring relevance of taniwha in Aotearoa.
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
Collection
Harry Vye Miller The Sunlit Road
While attending the Dunedin School of Art in the 1920s, Harry Vye Miller fell under the spell of his teachers William Allen and Robert Field. He thrived under their progressive attitudes to art, and William in particular encouraged his work as a printmaker. Based in Ōtepoti Dunedin throughout his career, Harry became an artist-educator himself and advocated for the linocut medium throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In 1942 he wrote an article for Art in New Zealand titled ‘Teaching Lino-cutting’, in which he championed the democratic nature of the medium and its suitability for use by artists and art students alike, as the materials were all within anyone’s reach.
Ink on Paper: Aotearoa New Zealand Printmakers of the Modern Era, 11 February – 28 May 2023
Collection
Colleen Waata Urlich Paikea Pot
Colleen Waata Urlich was one of the founding members of Ngā Kaihanga Uku, the Māori Clay Artists collective and was affectionately known as the “matriarch of the muddies”. Her work often celebrated mana wāhine and the female form, and as well as objects for exhibition she also produced unfired vessels in which to bury the placenta after a birth. Urlich worked with blended clays from Te Waipounamu South Island and her papa kāika in Te Tai Tokerau Northland. She said that using earth gathered from her tūrakawaewae was an essential element of her work, “connecting me and the ultimate creation I have made, back to where I come from, back to the whenua”. The surface patterns on Paikea Pot show the influence of her research into Lapita pottery, and the visual relationships across the Pacific that are evident in weaving, carving, painting and now ceramic arts in Aotearoa New Zealand.
mana wāhine ~ the inherent strength, power, and authority possessed and exercised by Māori women
papa kāika ~ original home, home base
tūrakawaewae ~ place where one has rights of residence and belonging through kinship and ancestry
He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)
Collection
Kristin Stephenson Close 20
This drawing is part of an extraordinary series of portraits Kristin Stephenson made of her husband Steve Hollis between 2002 and 2004. He was suffering from vascular dementia, a degenerative illness, and early on they made a pact together that she would document his decline (a keen supporter of her work, he had always enjoyed being drawn). The Close works convey a complex mix of tenderness, humour and grief. Kristin moves beyond pure description, using a variety of techniques and textures to create an image that suggests both Steve’s shifting sense of self and the gradual erasure of the familiar.
(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022-21 July 2024 )
Collection
Kristin Stephenson Close 9
One of three large charcoal drawings (from part of a series entitled Close), depicting the artist's husband Steve. This series of work is a journey around the intimacy of Hollis's relationship with Steve, who is suffering from a degenerative illness. Rather than simply being a 'portrait project' the drawings document the dialogue/communication between them and the physical and psychological changes happening to him. He is not drawn all in the same way, the artist being 'obsessed' with drawing, explores a larger tradition and experiments with different techniques. The title of the exhibition indicates physical nearness as well as psychological closeness as well as the changes happening to Steve, revealed through the close focus of the face. As the artist says " What is happening to us is really it. Because Steve is not well, my doing this project brings into question the issue of that fine line between empathy and exposure. I did the drawings for both of us, and the viewer - to honour people by treating them honestly, letting them into your life".
Collection
Kristin Stephenson Close 3
One of three large charcoal drawings (from part of a series entitled Close), depicting the artist's husband Steve. This series of work is a journey around the intimacy of Hollis's relationship with Steve, who is suffering from a degenerative illness. Rather than simply being a 'portrait project' the drawings document the dialogue/communication between them and the physical and psychological changes happening to him. He is not drawn all in the same way, the artist being 'obsessed' with drawing, explores a larger tradition and experiments with different techniques. The title of the exhibition indicates physical nearness as well as psychological closeness as well as the changes happening to Steve, revealed through the close focus of the face. As the artist says " What is happening to us is really it. Because Steve is not well, my doing this project brings into question the issue of that fine line between empathy and exposure. I did the drawings for both of us, and the viewer - to honour people by treating them honestly, letting them into your life".
