New shows at ROAR! gallery 29th June – 16th July

For Immediate Release 14.06.06

New shows at ROAR! gallery 29th June – 16th July

Opening Thursday 29th July at 5.30pm with tea in real china cups, glasses of wine and home baking.

‘Post from Home’ a mother and daughter collaboration between Poppy and Ann Moore.
Also featuring new work by Rosie White, and new discoveries Michelle Irving, Carmel McSherry and a Wellington alt-craft extravaganza.

Poppy and Ann Moore are bringing to you live the knitting from out of a family lounge-scape and onto the gallery walls.

“For as long as I can remember my mother knitted garments to keep her family warm. It was done quietly and modestly. A duty of love. It wasn’t until my adult years I began to see my mother’s craft outside of its function, to see it as an artform- an art that evokes strong emotion; a thing of beauty, history, skill and wonder. She, the craft, can stand confidently next to her contemporary brothers and sisters.”

In recent months NZ Post has been an unwitting carrier of art most precious. In ‘Post from Home’, mother and daughter team Poppy and Ann Moore build on the sell out success of last year’s ‘Close Knit’, in which their respective mediums conversed, sending inspiration from hot water bottles to small but perfectly formed canvases. This time the iconic Pohutukawa postcard gets the treatment, blown up to huge scale, each section knitted by Ann and painted by Poppy to create 45 cent stamps.

Moore describes the postcard as “’a fond image of ‘home’. There’s something of a thread of comfort in this exhibition- mother. Home. Knitting- a sending and receiving from a base note. It’s a privilege and a delight to sit once again alongside my mother on the gallery walls- the knitting and the paint.”

Carmel McSherry is our new and exciting discovery from Christchurch. She describes her dollies as “a bit of a reaction against mass produced "fashion "dolls. As they are all individual characters that reflect my imagination and aspects of human quirks and historical oddities, rather than plastic clones that are churned out today.”

They are soft to the touch rather than hard and sterile, made from scraps of fabric from garments I’ve made rather than cluttering up the earth with new materials. (recycling rather than throwing away).

Carmel easily fits into the Wellington, Cuba St scene, creating works which, although soft to hold, have the darker underbelly reminiscent of some of Auckland artist Misery’s work. The textile and object art she creates, are a mix of fantasy creatures such as the Tripus, which is a cross between an octopus and a cat, and old world characters loosely based on Victorian carnival characters.

Michelle Irving has been working with fabric and specifically felt for the last ten years, creating her Astro-dogs, and various other households animals freed from their usual place in front of the fire or on a lap to cruise the the heavens on their own adventures. She, along with Poppy and Anne, enjoys the sense of history which she gains from using the skills which have been passed on to her through her mother and grandmother. In her own words;

“Animals feature predominantly in my work. I like the idea of another world, in which my creatures live, have parties, celebrate life, and dream!”

ENDS

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