Notes
Eileen Mayo

Eileen Mayo

It's 107 years since this multi-talented artist, described by art historian Kenneth Clark as 'outstandingly good', was born in Norwich, England.

Notes
Lizard's Lounge

Lizard's Lounge

I stumbled into their lair on accident, and found myself in a madhouse of reptilian decree. I immediately froze, in a vain hope they had not noticed me in my peculiarity, but my attempts were feeble, I had been seen. I felt a cold sweat and a shiver ran down my spine as they glared at me with beady black eyes from a nebulous of smoke and dust that choked the room. I was their intruder. One of the lizards mockingly hissed a welcome, 'Please take a seat, you look weary.'

 

Collection
Large Mammal Storage Bay #1, Canterbury Museum

Neil Pardington Large Mammal Storage Bay #1, Canterbury Museum

For a large, intensive photographic project that he called The Vault, Neil Pardington used his camera to see what discoveries could be made in the hidden storage spaces of museums and art galleries throughout New Zealand.

This assemblage of taxidermied beasts was found in a storeroom at Canterbury Museum, kept in safekeeping while unneeded for display. All facing the same direction, it’s almost as if they’re waiting for their moment to escape.

(Beasts, 2015)

Collection
The Mouse-trap

Petrus van der Velden The Mouse-trap

The Dutch painter Petrus van der Velden arrived in Christchurch in 1890 for what was intended to be a short visit to New Zealand. Staying longer than he had planned, he made an impact on the local scene as a ‘real artist’ from old Europe in their midst.

This painting was shown by a Christchurch art dealer in 1893, and described by a reporter:

The picture is entitled ‘The Mouse-trap’, and represents a boy holding the trap with a mouse in it which he has just caught. The face of the boy is beautifully painted, the expression of pleasure being very cleverly caught.

(Beasts, 2015)

Notes
Loads of bulls

Loads of bulls

Looking out of the library window at the Kings Manor here in York I can see a bronze calf.

Notes
A Well Timed Care Package

A Well Timed Care Package

One of the best-timed gifts my family and I have ever received arrived at our home on Mt Pleasant in May. 

Collection
A Study from Nature

George Hayter A Study from Nature

Compare British Museum Registration number 1851,0412.5

Notes
Animals

Animals

The Gallery's Registration department keeps a close watch on our collection of art, with regular audits to make sure all is as it should be.

Collection
A Perfect Childhood

Paul Johns A Perfect Childhood

The past is the subject of this photograph by Paul Johns – as it is the subject of all photographs. A photograph exists in the present, but what is photographed is immediately and always the past. Rather than reconstruct a specific memory, Johns’s photograph alludes to the construction of memory itself – partial, hallucinatory, inconclusive and often pieced together afterwards from photographs. The rabbit’s head somehow suggests the fevered vision of a dream, or perhaps the White Rabbit from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – always late and anxiously running to catch up.

(Now, Then, Next: Time and the Contemporary, 15 June 2019 – 8 March 2020)

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