These tranquil and reassuringly well-fed tigers offer an unexpected view of a creature many associate with danger. Chrystabel Aitken’s lifelong interest in animals meant she took up every opportunity to observe and sketch them – paying of a later visit to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney that she only wished she could have spent weeks there instead of days. As in much of her printmaking and sculpture, this linocut fuses a strong sense of naturalism with a stylised approach to pattern and colour – a combination perfectly suited to the sleek, striped coats of this affectionate pair.

(Dear Shurrie: Francis Shurrock and his contemporaries, 8 March – 13 July 2025)

This remarkable mid seventeenth-century marbled slipware bottle, or costrel, originates from a pottery production region in Tuscany and likely left Italy containing wine or oil. Also known as a pilgrim flask, it has holes through the moulded satyr masks to hold a rope cord. A near-identical vessel is found in Gerrit Dou’s The Physician (1653).

(Out of Time, 23 September 2023 – 28 April 2024)

In this work, Robyn Kahukiwa leaves no room for interpretation: Māori did not, via Te Tiriti o Waitangi or otherwise, give sovereignty to the Crown over their lands, language or culture. Throughout her long career, Kahukiwa has been committed to making work that addresses the inequalities in Aotearoa New Zealand brought about by colonisation. She has said, “How can you paint about Māori and not paint about political issues? How can you separate the two?”

Te Tiriti o Waitangi ~ the Treaty of Waitangi

He Kapuka Oneone – A Handful of Soil (from August 2024)

Printed from the original block by Tara Mcleod at the Holloway Press, Auckland, 2004.