B.
Unruly, unexpected and oblique images
Gallery
Combining unexpected detours, unruly surfaces and oblique viewpoints, the artists in Keep left, keep right invite viewers to slow down and take notice of the city that surrounds them.
Miranda Parkes Keep left, keep right 2012. Photograph
Located upstairs in the NG building at 212 Madras Street, the exhibition is the latest in our Rolling Maul series and features large-scale paintings by Miranda Parkes and Tjalling de Vries, as well as a projected work by Parkes.
Director Jenny Harper describes the exhibition as a great opportunity to see significant works by two local artists with steadily increasing national profiles.
'Regular visitors to Christchurch Art Gallery will recall Parkes's Slumper painting, which has been a highlight of our contemporary collection since it was acquired in 2006, and over the past few months the heroically sized mural Tjalling is Innocent by de Vries on the back wall of the CoCA building has provided a welcome and constantly changing point of interest for those on Worcester Boulevard.
'Keep left, keep right is a wonderful example of the strong work that continues to be made here in Christchurch and, as part of the ongoing Rolling Maul series, the exhibition emphasises the Gallery's continuing determination to support local artists after the earthquakes.'
Both University of Canterbury graduates who live in Christchurch, Parkes and de Vries, explore the creative possibilities of large-scale, pre-existing images, using repurposed surfaces as the starting points for their paintings. From here, they generate very different works that obstruct and intrigue the viewer in equal measure.
Parkes has described her works as 'a way of interpreting the changing trajectories we have to take through the city – for example, around blocked off spaces that were previously open and vice-versa - via painterly space. How can this real body (and emotional) experience be transferred into flat painted space?' Her video work isolates a minor moment we might otherwise miss – the rippling shadow a gently flapping flag makes on a city footpath.
De Vries transforms the eye-catching imagery of a commercial billboard, interrupting the original composition with bold painted motifs drawn from a range of sources. Unlikely juxtapositions are designed to disrupt the viewing experience, encouraging the visitor to question what they think they see.
Keep left, keep right runs until 18 November.
The Rolling Maul series has been generously supported by Creative New Zealand.
Related
Exhibition
Miranda Parkes / Tjalling de Vries: Keep left, keep right
27 October – 18 November 2012
Sharing an interest in expanding the idea of abstract painting beyond its traditional borders, Miranda Parkes and Tjalling de Vries explore the creative possibilities of commercial billboards in an exhibition that combines painting and projection to obstruct and intrigue in equal measure.
Exhibition
Tjalling is Innocent
21 August – 29 October 2012
An ambitious paste-up work by local artist Tjalling de Vries on CoCa's back wall (viewable from Worcester Boulevard), Tjalling is Innocent is an Outer Spaces project presented in association with CoCA.
Collection
Miranda Parkes Slumper
Revelling in a kind of contemporary baroque, Miranda Parkes’ Slumper began as a three by nine metre piece of flat canvas, but – being too large for the studio floor – had to be folded into thirds before being painted and scrunched into this form. Having grappled with the problem of creating more objects in a world already filled with objects, Parkes negotiated a kind of truce with this dilemma, flipping it around and using spectacular excess as a potentially useful ingredient. While retaining an honest, at times iconoclastic stance, she is nevertheless drawn to the sensory aspects of canvas, colour and paint; elaborate costume, circus tents and over-the-top, opulent interiors are occasionally grist to her painter’s mill.
(As Time Unfolds, 5 December 2020 – 7 March 2021)