Edwards + Johann: Mutabilities—propositions to an unknown Universe:

14 September 2024 until 9 February 2025

Transformation is at the heart of a captivating new exhibition opening at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū next month.

It features the work of Victoria Edwards and Ina Johann, Ōtautahi Christchurch-based artists who have collaborated as ‘Edwards + Johann’ since 2007.

“The pair met while working in art education during the 1990s, and although they each had their own practices, they soon realised that working together provided the opportunity to push their artmaking into unexpected and exciting new directions,” says curator Felicity Milburn.

“Their collaboration is a kind of ongoing conversation that allows them to move beyond individual egos to a third place where they blend their shared histories with ideas from art, literature, history and place.

Edwards + Johann use a range of different materials and processes – photography, drawing, collage, sculpture and more – often layering these over each other so that their works evolve through multiple states. Edwards + Johann: Mutabilities—propositions to an unknown universe combines a selection of works from the last five years with new sculptures – some still in a state of ‘becoming’ – to deliver an intriguing and transporting art experience.

Artistic residencies, here and in Scotland, France and Switzerland, have been a key part of Edwards + Johann’s practice, providing an opportunity to absorb the atmosphere and history of unfamiliar locations and then use this as a catalyst for artmaking.

Their new exhibition is shaped by their responses to two very different places – Ōtautahi Christchurch and Whakaari White Island, located near Whakatāne on the east coast of the North Island.

Leo Bensemann: Paradise Garden:

14 September – 9 February 2025

This September, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū will exhibit a significant collection of landscape works by the influential Ōtautahi artist Leo Bensemann (1912–1986).

It will be the first exhibition of the artist’s work since the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake forced the major retrospective, Leo Bensemann: A Fantastic Art Venture, to close.

That exhibition was open for just 10 days before the earthquake struck, and it would be five years before the Gallery would open its doors again.

Leo Bensemann: Paradise Garden opens on Saturday 14 September and showcases the highly imaginative landscape paintings that defined the later years of Bensemann’s artistic career.

Curator Peter Vangioni says that Mohua Golden Bay became an endless source of inspiration for the artist.

“Bensemann lived and worked in Ōtautahi, but he was born and raised in Mohua and Whakakū Nelson. However, it was a 1965 holiday in Tākaka that ignited his two-decade-long fascination with the landscape there – especially the unique marble rock formations found in the area,” Mr Vangioni says.

“Playing with scale and surrealism, Bensemann enlarged small pieces of rock to appear like gargantuan geological forms, thrusting out of the earth.”

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