Five artists showing @ ROAR! gallery

Five artists showing @ ROAR! gallery …

Martin Doyle - Fighting For A Peace
Micah Sherman - Sky Beyond Sky
Athina Moisa - Fabric Of Society
Anne Wright - God Works In Mysterious Ways
Stuart Gray - Parton From Reality

WHEN: 8th – 25th October 2008.
Opening: 5.30-7.30pm, Thursday 9th October.
WHERE: ROAR! gallery
55 Abel Smith St
Level 1 (above Real Groovy)
WELLINGTON

PRESS RELEASE: For immediate release.

We’re showcasing new work by five fabulous artists who certainly know their own mind. Martin Doyle, Micah Sherman, Anne Wright, Athina Moisa, Stuart Gray bring to ROAR! gallery exciting new work that appropriates (or even, mis-appropriates?) the things we take for granted in our everyday lives - images, references, bylines, headlines, slogans, symbols, celebrities, urban myths, morals, politics and politicians – all in a very tongue in cheek fashion.

ROAR! Gallery has a sneaking suspicion that New Zealander’s are good at this kind of work - ordinary people turning ordinary materials and ideas into extraordinary things. Prepare to walk into a room full of cheeky commentary, misrepresentations and colorful antics.

MARTIN DOYLE – Fighting For A Peace
Fighting For A Peace is Martin Doyle’s third solo show @ ROAR! gallery. His art depicts Wellington city, its people, its offices, buildings, buses and streets. Making use of collage, paint, ink, dyes and pencil his work sometimes looks like a “glorious mess” of textures, shapes and colours. But the true focus of his work is the social and political side of the Capital. One of the paintings in the exhibition Small Meeting of the Rulers of the Universe has been hanging recently in the office of the Associate Minister of the Arts. “To be hung at Parliament is the highlight of my career,” says Martin. Increasingly known for his popular weekly quiz in Capital Times and his political cartoons, Martin says his paintings also comment on today’s society. “In Last Tango on the Quay, I try to evoke the power struggle between Helen Clark and John Key through the image of a Latin tango being danced in downtown Wellington.“ Other paintings comment on the way buildings, offices and technology have “disciplined” people more than they realise. To Hell in a Hand Basket, shows the way our hands can become baskets for other people.

MICAH SHERMAN - Sky Beyond Sky
Micah Sherman’s first solo show - Sky Beyond Sky is about growing up in an atheist home in America, where his moral teachings came, in part, from heavy doses of cartoons and sit-coms complete with commercial interruptions.
According to Micah, “the average person watches TV for 12 years of their life. I reached my quota years ago. As an adult and expatriate I tuned out the mass media and awakened to the injustice and violence of the world, much of it, I realized, wrought by own country”.

ANNE WRIGHT –God Works In Mysterious Ways
In the aftermath of a big accident, Anne Wright, a self professed fiery Red Head with a wild heart of Gold, set her creative sights on turning her backyard into a garden. She worked passionately on it until there was no lawn left.
But, who needs lawns anyway when you can paint?

For Anne, “paintings take your mind off all the things in life, if you keep busy you can escape. You can keep working and it takes your mind off what is bothering you. I get really involved in painting, I guess it’s like playing golf or something but I don’t do that”.
God Works In Mysterious Ways is the result of Anne’s busy, fun, crude, yet charming observations and appropriation of icons from glossy magazine pages.

ATHINA MOISA – Fabric Of Society
Hot on the tails of her sell out solo show last year, Athina has produced another woolly community of new work. Her signature wool tapestries reveal happy scenes in ideal surroundings. In Fabric Of Society Athina wants to recreate the joys you feel when putting on a woolly jumper, “you feel like you’re in a warm, soft and comfortable environment”.

STUART GRAY - Parton from Reality
As a country boy, Stuart has always been attracted to glitzy places like Los Vegas with their sparkling facades and over the top sensationalism.

In Parton from Reality, Stuart has dressed discarded, throw away items into something more worthy to look at. Like a moth drawn to the flame, Stuart is intrigued with all that glitters, and through his fabulous pieces, he explores the devices and trickery used in nightclubs to create a certain kind of atmosphere and nostalgia which hides the bars to hide wasteland behind the lights of Los Vegas.

Stuart pokes fun at places like Los Vegas and its glamour, through his own unique sense of kitsch and theatrics.

Join us for the Opening celebrations @ 5.30,
Thursday 9th October.

ENDS

ROAR! gallery is a vibrant gallery which aims to support and promote Outsider Art. Its focus is not to define this term but to be open to those who feel connected to an art making approach which is unique, honest, compelling and about a persons total connection with their creativity, uninfluenced by external restrictions and conventions. We’re proud to bring you this thrilling combination of talent and awareness.

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