Opening Tomorrow - Shelly Bay Artists!

Thistle Hall is a vibrant community centre in the heart of New Zealand's cultural capital. We provide a community hall, meeting room and Wellington's only community gallery showcasing a range of artists and crafts people, from the established to the emerging. Thistle Hall is located on the corner of Cuba and Arthur streets. The shows on at Thistle Hall Community Gallery are run by the artists who hire it.

On Now
18 - 23 OCTOBER 2011
SHELLY BAY ARTISTS.

OPEN: 11.00am - 6.00pm daily.

An exhibition of painting, sculpture and printmaking by a range of artists working at Shelly Bay, including Michael Browne, Ellen Coup, Jane Brimblecombe, Jeanne Macaskill, Basia Smolnicki, James Harcourt, Richard Lomas, Treefrog, Carlos Wedde, Leigh Malcolm.

As part of the Shelly Bay Artists Exhibition, printmaker Basia Smolnicki will have a printing press installed at Thistle Hall for the duration of the show.

Basia will be working on current print projects and will demonstrate various printmaking methods daily. You will be able to view Basia inking and intaglio plates pulled through a traditional etching press.

The Solander printing press is also for hire.

The Shelly Bay defence base sits on a site originally created when a large earthquake lifted the land out of the sea in 1855. The same 'quake created beaches at the various bays around the foothills of Mount Crawford on Wellington's Miramar Peninsula.

Since this time Shelly bay developed as a munitions store and Air Force base. By the mid 1980s around 150 people were based at Shelly bay. In 1995 Shelly Bay was decommissioned as a military base and since that time large areas of the base have provided studios and rehearsal spaces to different artists. In 2009 the Government of New Zealand signed a deed of settlement with Iwi who are now custodians of the site. Shelly Bay has also become an increasingly popular place for recreation and debate continues as to its development in the future.

The artists in this exhibition have been working at the base for between ten years and less than a year.

Up Next
28 - 30 OCTOBER 2011
ACTU8 SCREENPRINTS, COLLAGES & TRANSFERS: GEORGE HAJIAN

OPEN: 10.30am - 7.00pm Friday - Sunday.
The artist will be at the gallery Friday afternoon and all day Saturday and Sunday.

George Hajian welcomes you to his third screenprinting exhibition Actu8.

Using pages taken from vintage maps and books as such as a late 19th century edition of Homer's The Odyssey, George Hajian's latest screenprinting exhibition, Actu8, explores the significance of journeys, making connections and actuating change.

In this exhibition, Hajian's third at Thistle Hall (d:construct 2008 and e-motion 2009), various collage elements sit alongside his established screenprinting style to create his one-off wooden panels and limited edition prints.

"There is hidden symbolism and direct quotes in each work," says Hajian whose method of creating involves free-form writing, "laying bare feelings and thoughts" and pulling out the themes from these to translate into screenprints and illustrations.

More information on www.georgehajian.co.nz.

Please see http://www.thistlehall.org.nz for more information

ENDS

© Scoop Media