Information Release
4 November 2009
Lower Life Forms
Click for big version
The 2009 Portage Award winners Madeleine Child and Philip Jarvis bring work to Wellington for the next exhibition at the
Mary Newton Gallery, Lower Life Forms.
Lower Life Forms is a new direction for Dunedin-based husband and wife team, Child and Jarvis. “Formerly their work
replicated household objects as ceramics. This new work instead takes domestic detritus as its material” said gallery
co-director Mary-Jane Duffy, “and the results are other-worldly and upbeat.”
“Two subjects – marine life and an unusual plant called a Vegetable sheep - connected by a fascination with nature’s
ability to co-achieve efficiency and equilibrium, offer a way of working with dissimilar materials in intimate,
symbiotic association. These materials include masses of tied and twisted rubber bands, paint-saturated sponge and
ceramic polyps, pottery and it’s packing materials, doodads & doodahs, oversized nic-nacs in a tradition of ornament and embedded decoration. Working with the not obviously
beautiful things demands study and rewards closer inspection” said Philip Jarvis
Lower Life Forms runs until 28 November 2009.
ENDS