Exhibitions
Events
On display
Olivia Spencer Bower: Artist and Residency
Marti Freidlander Olivia Spencer Bower 1978. Photograph. Collection of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, purchased 1998
Talk
Past event
Philip Carter Family Auditorium
Free
Curator Melanie Oliver is joined by 2024 award recipient Jen Alexandra for a talkabout artist Olivia Spencer Bower and the residency.
Established in 1987, The Olivia Spencer Bower residency is awarded annually to an emerging painter or sculptor from Aotearoa.
Related
My Favourite
Olivia Spencer Bower's Menzies Bay
This work of art paints connections for me – to people, to this landscape and this place. My great-great-grandparents John Henry Menzies and Francis Elizabeth Menzies settled here in the 1870s. I was intrigued to discover that, way back then, the Christchurch parochial attitude was already well established. When he purchased the land John Henry encountered difficulty at the land office; he wrote, ‘A map was the first step. I was a stranger. You must not, even now be a stranger in Canterbury. Not one of the clerks would take any notice of me. It was entirely a case of favouritism.’
Article
A Room of One’s Own
That experience of foreignness, of working within a different geographic or cultural context, has proved a compelling stimulus for arts practices, particularly when coupled with a studio and free accommodation.
As you read this, hundreds of artists and curators from around the world are carving out a living and working space in locations made remarkable by their strangeness and/or the opportunity to live and work away from the pressure of paid work, be it in Sweden or Southland, Dunedin or Denmark, New Plymouth or the Netherlands.