Opening: Bronte Perry and Ange Perry, and my heart is soft
Bronte Perry and Ange Perry
and my heart is soft
April 12 – May 5, 2018
and my heart is soft is an installation of sculpture and weaving by Ange and Bronte Perry. As mother and child with Pākeha, Māori and
Croatian heritage, their collaboration confronts the ideas of unknowing and re-learning, exploring gaps and
incommensurabilities in cultural knowledge and whakapapa through an open-ended, materially-driven dialogue.
For this exhibition, Bronte has worked predominantly with text and timbre, sourcing large cross sections of Pohutukawa
and swamp Kauri and engraving passages of text into the wood. Based on English and Te Reo Māori translations of
religious psalms from the Croatian Bible Novi Zavjet i Psalmi, the texts reveal the uncertainty of translated language
as different poetic meanings are used to describe experiences of loss and mourning. For instance, the notion of being
‘broken hearted’ or ‘soft hearted’ referred to in these translations creates room for vastly different interpretations.
These timbre works are presented alongside two woven tāniko by Ange, which take the stories of her Croatian Grandfather
and Māori Grandmother as starting points. Working with this challenging weaving technique—where coloured horizontal
threads are introduced to the whatu twining technique, combining full and half twists to bring one or another colour to
the front to create intricate geometric patterns—both tāniko represent family meetings and stories and are linked by the
sea and migration. Read more.
Closing Saturday April 7, 2018: Heart of Glass by Isabella Dampney and Theo Macdonald
Borrowing its name from Blondie’s 1979 hit single and a 1976 Werner Herzog film of the same title, Heart of Glass revolves around a simple intervention: breaking one of Enjoy Public Art Gallery’s windows. Read more.
Enjoy Public Art Gallery
Level 1 / 147 Cuba Street
Wellington 6011
Aotearoa New Zealand
Gallery opening hours
Wednesday to Friday 11am – 6pm
Saturday 11am – 4pm
ends