Kā Kaupapa o te Wā
What’s On
Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist
A rare opportunity to view the work of one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most adventurous and experimental modernist artists.
Made in the Pacific: A Collection of Tāoga
A selection of Pacific tāoga from the Canterbury Museum in conversation with contemporary artworks that highlight the continued strength in culture and traditional art forms.
Mark Adams: A Survey | He Kohinga Whakaahua
A comprehensive survey spanning the artist's career.
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
Notes
Foresight
Our predecessor, the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, opened on 16 June 1932. By co-incidence, the premises we currently occupy opened the day after.
Collection
Jess Johnson Boston Visionary Cell
“I’ve drawn for as long as I remember”, says Jess Johnson, a New Zealand artist now living in New York, whose work blends science fiction, popular culture and technology, creating speculative worlds in architectural settings. “Elements of my drawings now aren’t very different from what I drew as a kid. I always used lots of repetitive pattern and I would just work the page until I’d filled it to the edges. There’s something about the labour involved in drawing that suits my psychology. It means I get to spend long hours in the studio thinking my own thoughts.”“What comes out of my drawings is a result of what I put in. The books that I read. The things that scare me”, she says. “To be able to imagine different possibilities, that’s the first step to being able to change your own reality. To be able to imagine a different one.”
(We do this, 12 May 2018 - 26 May 2019)
Exhibition
New Zealand Illustrated: Pictorial Books from the Victorian Age
A selection of lavishly illustrated books from the Victorian era relating to New Zealand landscape, Māori culture, colonial enterprise and our unique flora, fauna and birdlife.
Notes
Morose Jester
An early work by Sydney Lough Thompson (1877-1973) is a recent addition to the collection, having been left to the Gallery by generous bequest.
Notes
Stronger together
We thought those of you who kept track of Sian Torrington's Outer Spaces project in Avonside might be interested to see what she has been up to recently.
Collection
Archibald Nicoll A Canterbury landscape
Having lost his leg while fighting on the Somme during World War I, Archibald Nicoll was confined to painting landscapes in close proximity to where he was able to drive. This is why so many of his landscapes have roads as a central motif. Rather than a hindrance, however, Nicoll put his car to good use and revelled in the freedom it offered, driving all over Canterbury to paint. He would often combine painting excursions with family holidays. The scene in this work is thought to be Balcairn Downs inland from the town of Amberley in North Canterbury.
In the vast emptiness, 8 January - 21 August 2016
Notes
The Art of Marbling
The art of marbling is alive and well in Christchurch. Well, at least among the kids that have been coming to our holiday programme.
Notes
South Island kōkako by Eileen Mayo
This article first appeared as 'Elusive grey ghost continues to evade' in The Press on 4 October 2013
