A Return to Painting – T.L. Rodney Wilson

PRESS RELEASE: 10 November 2011: For immediate release

A Return to Painting – T.L. Rodney Wilson
(Past director of Christchurch’s Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Auckland Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Victoria, Auckland War Memorial Museum and founding director of the New Zealand National Maritime Museum).

Rodney Wilson believes in a generous gap between shows – his last solo exhibition was in 1967! Works from that early era are held in the Christchurch Art Gallery, Hocken Library University of Otago, and the Wallace Collection.

As past director of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Auckland City Art Gallery, founding director of the New Zealand Maritime Museum and an outstanding arts administrator and activist it would be hard to have missed mention of Rodney Wilson's involvement in the cultural sector over the last 40 years.

But this outstanding cultural administrator’s first love was painting and his initial training was in Fine Arts at the University of Canterbury, before completing a Doctoraal in Art History at the Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, and a Ph.D. in Art History at Canterbury.

Now, 45 years since his last solo exhibition, Rodney Wilson has returned to painting and will present a large show of his recent works at Depot Galleries in February 2012.

‘Mo’s Kitchen: An anthropology of the kitchen’ is presented by The Depot’s Cultural Icons project (conversations with iconic people www.culturalicons.co.nz) and will include a group of works on paper and paintings on plywood panels.

Running alongside the exhibition is the Cultural Icons Tribute to Rodney Wilson, an assemblage of personal accolades, anecdotes and acknowledgements from his friends, contemporaries and colleagues, in celebration of a practical visionary.

Exhibition information:

Mo’s Kitchen: An anthropology of the kitchen
T.L.Rodney Wilson
11 February – 1 March 2012
Opening in the Main Gallery on: Saturday 11 February 4.30 - 6pm

“Assailed as we are by gastro-pornography, assaulted by the used car salesmen of the kitchen whenever we pick up the television remote, bombarded by libraries of cooking books spewing out onto the pavement on remaindered tables, I was reluctant to impose more foodism on the world. But Mo’s kitchen is a place of peace, delight, love and labour; a refuge. It is also a place of intrigue and passion as some of these little recordings attempt to show. Forgive me for adding further foodist folly to a world that craves its next hysteria. Some are born to lead, but some of us are just born to follow.”

VENUE ADDRESSES:
The Depot/Depot Galleries
28 Clarence St
Devonport

ENDS

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