Heidi Brickell’s works reflect on relationships, and how the language that connects them can slip and slide between multiple meanings. The title of this painting blends te reo Māori and English, and refers to how you might clench or engage your muscles for a journey. That physical shift in energy echoes the mental engagement that comes with a desire to learn or communicate. Heidi overlays different materials to suggest bodily forms like hands, muscles and brain. Presenting the canvas as a pātiki (diamond) rather than the more-typical square adds to the sense of movement and creates a new space for the sharing of ideas

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)