Spring brings us to wistful states: a wish and an impulse to regain or make better and momentum for the longer days ahead. In an existence seemingly shaped equally by predictability and randomness we’re getting used to being light on our feet, so this month’s picks are a mixture of lighthearted and thoughtful, exhibitions to both soothe and to poke at your senses.
Te Uru
Stars start falling
From 4 September
420 Titirangi Road, Titirangi
Spanning more than fifty years of artistic practice, the exhibition puts Teuane Tibbo’s paintings from the ’60s and ’70s into conversation with work made by Ani O’Neill and new commissions by Salome Tanuvasa. Stars start falling examines processes of memory, learning, and knowledge as responses to the artists’ engagement with the everyday and the extraordinary, offering a complex view of the shifting landscape of Pacific life in Aotearoa over the last half century. Join Te Uru for Spring Open Day on Saturday 18 September.
Te Tuhi
Pono: The potential of making something that leads to nothing
From 12 September
13 Reeves Road, Pakuranga
Curated Janet Lilo, Pono places a Māori worldview at the centre of the exhibition’s kaupapa. Artists Chantel Matthews and Jacob Hamilton explore what it means to ‘give and take’ through sculptural moments and acts of manaakitanga, creating meaningful gestures and transactions that journey toward the restoration of whakapapa and hauora.
Te Uru
Ani O’Neill,
Counter Productive,
1999/2021
Suite Gallery
Bonco – Count the stars — if indeed you can
Until 25 September
189 Ponsonby Road
Across a series of new paintings based around the grid the artist Bonco invokes the metaphysical, reaching back into the tradition of abstraction and spirituality explored by Mondrian, Hilma af Klint and others. Via a chess-board like play of quiet geometry, signifiers encoded within the work are signs and symbols that act as triggers for the subconscious, seeking to communicate from artist to audience. Artist talk: 3.00pm 19 September.
Takapuna Library
Sonja Drake – Ecotones
Until 29 September
9 The Strand, Takapuna
This exhibition brings together dreamy watercolours by local artist Sonja Drake with historical documentation. Located in the Angela Morton Room – one of the North Shore’s best kept secrets – her exploration of the local ecosystem where urban and natural meet unearths pre-human, Tangata Whenua, and colonial histories across a series of delicate and beautifully painted observational watercolours.
Scott Lawrie Gallery
The Confessions
Silo 6, Wynyard Quarter
2–8pm, 25– 30 September 202
Reflecting on modern day political and social witch-hunts, this 6-day project combines music, art, and digital installation. Inspired by the infamous Scottish witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries, The Confessions encompasses empathy and requiem, referencing the conditions of social strain and transition that brought about persecution and the mania that made women its scapegoat. Composer Sir James MacMillan’s tribute to supposed-witch Isobel Gowdie joins art works by Patricia Piccinini, Rebecca Wallis, Monique Lacey, Rebecca Hazard, and Amadeo Grosman. Visitors admitted on the hour and half hour.
Wallace Arts Trust
Tawhai Rickard
Captain Cook’s Time Machine (2020)
Wallace Arts Trust
Fumbles for Rhymes
Until November
72 Hillsborough Road, Hillsborough
Humour is a tricky but rewarding terrain for artists. This selection of works from the Wallace collection explores contemporary NZ artists’ diverse manipulations of humour through the works of Laura Williams, Tawhai Rickard, Glen Hayward, Dick Frizzell and others. See Rickard’s sculpture Captain Cook’s Time Machine (2020) and his wider practice for a smart and culturally attuned exploration of serious concepts fused with pop culture and satire.
Gow Langsford
Matthew Browne – Moment of Tangency
Kitchener Street
Until 25 September
A tangent is a line or plane that touches a curve, but can also represent a completely different line of thought or action, an abrupt change in thought or direction. Matthew Browne’s solo exhibition mines the artist’s longstanding interest in automatic drawing, a process that releases conscious control and incorporates chance to render the unconscious mind visible. Vivid colour blocks cut through with thin lines give each painting a deliciously sensual punch.
Parnell Gallery
Catherine Roberts – A Fanciful Mind
Until 21 September
263 Parnell Road
Catherine Robert’s semi-abstract landscapes engage with colour, texture, and contrast to create softly lush surfaces. Her new series of paintings are rhythmical and escapist, offering warm blues and yellows, potent reds, and earthy greens that create and obscure form across the canvas. These mixed-media landscapes are capped with a high-gloss, taking them from reality to otherworldly.
