Four-Ever Wellington At The Dowse

26 April 2012

Four-Ever Wellington At The Dowse

Unearthly beings, pulsing patterns, uneasy oaks and demonstrative deer - the diverse works, and worlds, of four Wellington artists are on show at The Dowse. Matt Hunt, Cat Auburn, Ann Shelton and Ben Buchanan each open exhibitions on 12th May as part of a winter season of Wellington artists’ projects, Solo, that features colourful and intriguing photography, sculpture, painting and installation.

Mt Victoria’s Ben Buchanan describes himself as a colourist who generates intensely hued patterns that pulse in syncopated rhythms. Buchanan uses sign-writing vinyl to stick onto the surfaces of the gallery, making paintings which wrap round walls and spill onto the floor. The vinyl is cut by hand and applied directly to the wall in a series of concentric geometric shapes. The title of his show, Forever alludes to the idea of infinity, and suggests that Buchanan’s work might reverberate out indefinitely.

Ann Shelton’s In a Forest features photographs of trees awarded to gold medalists at the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games. Sometimes referred to as 'Hitler Oaks', the then seedlings were gifted by the Olympic committee to 130 athletes, including our own Jack Lovelock. Lovelock’s oak was presented for winning gold in the 1500 metres. It still grows in Shelton’s home town of Timaru, in the grounds of Timaru Boys High School. Shelton has tracked other seedlings across Europe and the US. The trees maintain an uneasy role; commemorated for their connection to success, yet tainted by the stigma of Nazi Germany. Ann Shelton lives in Brooklyn, Wellington.

A country girl, Miramar-based Cat Auburn is known for working with animals, receiving media attention for exhibiting miniature pony “Maverick” and his handler Melissa at Christchurch COCA Gallery in 2010. In Training Aids at The Dowse, a herd of cast deer flock in clusters around the gallery. The deer appear almost as three dimensional drawings or roughly sketched out forms, which, although simple, suggest lithe, animal movements. Auburn is interested in the way we give human characteristics and emotions to animals, so that they become, ‘an interface into which people relate to each other’. A sprawling cast of characters inhabit Matt Hunt’s paintings in Seeing All of Tomorrow.

Hunt describes his work as ‘spiritual realism’; his paintings inspired by interests across pop culture, science fiction, comics, the Bible and art history, creating surreal narratives from such fusion. The inhabitants of his realm float, fly, and are propelled through apparently limitless space, or wait, in limbo, at the ‘Great Interdimensional Airport’. Machines fuse with animal parts to create extraordinary cyborg creatures, with such juxtapositions as a tank engineered with butterfly wings and fish tail, and a deer’s head mounted at the front of a plane. Matt Hunt lives in Alicetown and has a studio in Wainuiomata.

Solo: Four Wellington Artists

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ENDS

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