Sharp-witted Youle comes to Christchurch Art Gallery

Sharp-witted Youle comes to Christchurch Art Gallery

Wayne Youle BEFORE/AFTER 2015 Enamel on cast bronze. Courtesy of the artist and
Suite Gallery.

Full to the brim with high-energy, sharp-witted artmaking, Christchurch Art Gallery’s latest exhibition presents new, recent and site-specific works by Canterbury artist Wayne Youle.

From a glistening cobweb in faux-gold chain, to a supersized tyre swing, hand-knitted balaclavas and cast-bronze gumballs, Look Mum No Hands combines classic Youle works with pieces delivered fresh from his studio or painted directly onto the Gallery’s walls.

“Wayne Youle’s works can be made out of – and into – almost anything,” says curator Felicity Milburn. “What makes them instantly recognisable is their attitude – a high-voltage blend of insight, provocation and humour – and how they invite us to reconsider our everyday ideas and behaviours.”

In Look Mum No Hands, Youle’s works traverse a range of concerns, some of which have been recurrent themes in his practice, such as the challenges and ironies of cross-cultural interactions and the thorny issue of artistic appropriation. Other works take a cheeky swipe at the business of artmaking, such as Holy Grail, a framed section of wall studded with a single red pin – the art dealer’s signal a work has sold.

A more personal thread runs through Youle’s recent pieces, says Milburn.

“There’s the twenty-eight metres of orange wool that resulted when he asked his mother to knit for a year, the documenting of his ageing father walking one kilometre, and references to the difficult balancing act between work and family life.

“A meticulously finished, but impossible-to-ride, seesaw cutting through a section of wall, and the plywood treehouse and supersized tyre swing in the Gallery’s foyer all convey a kind of yearning for the simple pleasures of childhood, but they also carry an awareness of how the passage of time gradually alters our perspectives.”

Wayne Youle: Look Mum No Hands is on display at Christchurch Art Gallery from 14 April to 3 September 2017. Entry is free.

A programme of free events is associated with this exhibition, including a Garden Party (3 May), a sock-puppet-making event for families and kids (14 May), and two 30-minute ArtBite presentations by Warren Feeney (19 May, 12.30pm) and Felicity Milburn (11 August, 12.30pm), both held in the exhibition space. For more information, please see the following links:

https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/events/the-mix-garden-party

https://christchurchartgallery.org.nz/events/drop-on-in-sock-puppets

ENDS

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