Jacquelyn Greenbank

Aotearoa New Zealand, b.1973

Vege Tickler

  • 2016
  • Mixed media [plastic polymer, wood, leather, fabric tassel]
  • On loan from the Olivia Spencer Bower Foundation Award
  • 730 x 310mm
  • L04/2017.a-b

Vege Tickler is a particularly enigmatic object. Is it a necklace? Is it some kind of tool? Or does it have some other strange ritualistic function? It’s from Christchurch-based artist Jacquelyn Greenbank’s 2016 exhibition Squatch, a collection of totem poles, snare traps, hand-crafted body adornments and other peculiar votive objects which appear to be relics of an unknown culture, function unknown. At the same time, as critic Andrew Paul Wood notes, Greenbank’s objects proclaim their own inauthenticity, owing as much to contemporary popular culture (sasquatches! The Blair Witch Project! True Detective season 1!) as to any kind of anthropological impulse. Greenbank says that her approach to art-making is fundamentally domestic. “I utilise found objects, recycled materials and meticulously intricate hand-crafted objects that capture a moment, sensation or pseudo-historical event. Inquisitively woven narratives often blend social histories and the occult, popular culture and the paranormal in a unique and often humorous way.”

(We do this, 12 May 2018 - 26 May 2019)

Exhibition History