Leading New Zealand photographer Fiona Pardington is joining the Bartley Nees Gallery.
She marks her debut in the gallery with solo show "te tohua, te orongonui" (the full moon, the waning moon) which will
feature some new heitiki works. Pardington has taken photographs of heitiki found in museums which have little detail
about their provenance, other than being attributed to her iwi Ngai Tahu. These are beautiful and strong images with a
compelling and powerful presence.
"Acknowledging the tradition of the photographic still life, but also the rarity and almost human presence of these
precious objects, Pardington has attempted to convey a sense of their personal connection to individuals and families."
Bulletin of the Christchurch Art Gallery, June-August 2003.
"te tohua, te oronognui" will be the first time Pardington¹s work has been seen in a commercial gallery in Wellington
for several years. Earlier works in the heitiki series were included in the exhibition "Slow Release: recent photography
from New Zealand" shown in Melbourne and then recently at the Victoria University, Adam Art Gallery.
Pardington graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, in 1984. Since then her work has been
included in important international exhibitions of New Zealand art in Australia and Europe. Within New Zealand,
Pardington's work has been included in major surveys of contemporary art such as City Gallery, Wellington's "Prospect
2001: New Art New Zealand" and in Auckland Art Gallery's survey of contemporary Maori art "Purangiaho/ Seeing Clearly"
in 2002. Pardington also has work included in the opening Ngai Tahu exhibition at the new Christchurch Art Gallery.
She has also had over twenty solo exhibitions in public and commercial galleries throughout the country. In 2001 an
exhibition of her acclaimed "One Night of Love" series, in which she investigates discarded 1970s soft-porn
representations of women, was exhibited at the Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton.