Above Ground

This article first appaeared as 'Up North' in The Press on 27 July 2012

This article first appeared in The Press on 25 January 2013.

Peter Trevelyan's exhibition Selected Proofs is currently on at the University of Canterbury's  SOFA Gallery until 7th September.

New to the Gallery: an etching dated 1922 by John Mills Thomasson (1893–1969) was purchased recently for the collection.

When the SS Gothic docked in Auckland on 23 December 1953 with the Queen and Prince Philip on board, New Zealand went completely mental.

Bishop Victoria Matthews announced this afternoon that nearly all of ChristChurch Cathedral is to be demolished. Often described as the heart of Christchurch this is a huge loss as the building has been an icon to those living and visiting the city since its completion in 1904.

In the next issue of Bulletin, Christchurch writer Sally Blundell talks to artist Julia Morison about her post-quake sculptures and 'liqueurfaction' paintings, which go on show on Friday in Christchurch Art Gallery's latest Outer Spaces project. Here's a little of what Julia has to say:

Ugly beauty came over me like a thrilling rash.
Ugly beauty warmed me like a slap on the face.
Ugly beauty helped me rise above the crowd
and even if it meant sitting on the face
of the hunchback of Notre Dame
I quickly got over the obsolete shame.

The Rustle of Silk is showing at Everybody's. Foolish Wives, starring Eric von Stroheim, is screening at the Strand.

Cycling into work along Ferry Road each morning I pass one of those new ads perkily announcing that 'The Christchurch We Love is Still Here'. And each morning I imagine getting off the bike and performing a firm correction. Something along the lines of, 'The Christchurch we love is still here, but some very big bits of it are being knocked down.'

This article first appeared in The Press on 13 October 2004

Laurence Stephen Lowry painted Factory at Widnes in 1956, at which time he was Britain's most famous living painter. Lowry's fame increased in that year as he became the subject of a BBC television documentary, though his work had already been popular in British homes and schools as reproductions since the end of the war. If appreciation for his individualistic painting style was widespread, there was also fascination with L.S. Lowry the artist, who had projected in the press the image of a lonely recluse.

Today is the fifth anniversary of the February earthquake of 2011 which devastated Christchurch. During that time, we and our city have been through so many different phases.

Aaron Kreisler is Head of the School of Fine Art at the University of Canterbury. He talked to Bulletin about challenges and opportunities for the arts in our city and what art can contribute to the future of Christchurch.

Martin Trusttum, project manager for Ōtākaro Art by the River, and founder of temporary gallery space ArtBox, writes on the role of art in Christchurch.

This article first appeared in The Press as 'An Ode to Yertle the Turtle' on 13 May 2015.

For many years, the piercing whistle of the railway workshops off Blenheim Road was Addington's alarm clock.

A technology that allows a building to effectively 'float' on its foundations during an earthquake is about to be applied to the Gallery.

The latest issue of Photoforum's MoMento journal (issue 14, January 2014) focuses on the work of three photographers with strong ties to Christchurch and their haunting images of this battered city post February 22, 2011.

Here's a little from behind the scenes. Shifting Lines opens tomorrow, 9 November, and runs until 19 January 2014. It's a show about drawing as an idea, which is permitted here to take very different forms. It includes work by six artists – Andrew Beck, Peter Trevelyan, Katie Thomas, Pip Culbert, Gabriella Mangano and Silvana Mangano – all of whom use line to investigate space and structure in unexpected ways.

As a supplement to the article in today's Press GO section, highlighting the recent purchase of Ivy Fife's Untitled (Towards Worcester Street from St. Elmo Courts), here's a modest selection of paintings of rooftops, backyards and urban scapes from the collection...

Earthquake images from 125 years ago