Creatures from under your bed at Pixel Ink Gallery

27.05.09

Cultural integration, masculine error and creatures from under your bed at Pixel Ink Gallery

Wellington emerging artists Waimatao, Gemma Duncan and Siana Butterfield will open their first collaboration at Pixel Ink Gallery on Wednesday the 20th of June at 5.30pm.

“My First Apple” is a head on collision of fresh playful themes using sculpture, photography and illustration with underlying elements of cultural integration, masculine error and creatures from under your bed.

Waimatao is a Wellington-based sculptural artist. Her sculptures explore issues concerning ethnicity, culture, assimilation versus integration and the elusive animal 'the New Zealander’.

By deconstructing traditional techniques in binary with modern materials Waimatao constructs creatures that bend ethnographic standards.

“Using sculpture, I work through my personal concerns and critiques of past and present cultural relations here in New Zealand,” explains Waimatao.

Wellington-based artist, Gemma Duncan finds inspiration in her New Zealand surroundings, namely her family and the fallacies of stereotyping everyday New Zealand culture. Her artistic practice is consistently rooted in moving-image and photography.

Duncan said “My First Apple” will feature a photographic series documenting artefacts collected by her father - A ‘happy meal’ packed with polarising ideas, raised by masculine error.

“I’m fascinated by the uncanny found in the ‘norm’, the dirt and the sweat…the darker narratives you will find in your mundane surroundings if you look hard enough,” says Duncan.

The final member of the female collective, Siana Butterfield is an illustrative artist who uses natural environments and imagination as the foundations for her artwork.

Butterfield describes her illustrative works in “My First Apple” as an exploration of how childhood notions and fears can develop into affectionate memories.

“Overtime these once fearful yet trivial creatures become distorted in vitro by the human mind,” says Butterfield. “They live under your bed, in your head and hide in your wardrobe.”

Pixel Ink Gallery director, Rosalind Clark said the multi-disciplined exhibition is a first for the gallery which showcases local emerging and established artists.

Exhibition details:

Waimatao, Gemma Duncan, Siana Butterfield
My First Apple Collective

Pixel Ink Gallery, 12 Constable Street, Newtown, Wellington

Runs from 10 – 28 June 2009
Opening night: Wednesday 10 June 5.30 – 7.30pm

Admission FREE, all welcome to attend.

Gallery opening hours:
Mon – Tue: Closed (open by appointment)
Wed – Fri: 10am – 5.30pm
Sat – Sun: 10am – 3.30pm

For more information visit www.pixelink.co.nz or email gallery@pixelink.co.nz.

ENDS

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