Latest news with #EasternSouthlandGallery
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Artist's story takes flight
Three special screenings of the 2022 film, Geoff Dixon: Portraits of Us, are being shown at the St James Theatre in Gore this weekend and next Tuesday . Glenis Giles and Clare O'Leary's documentary invites us into Dixon's cluttered studio as he prepares works for his next exhibition, transforming children's toys and hard enamel paint into surreal collages of spacecraft and birdlife. The Bluff-born Dixon, who lives in Cairns, has long held a fascination with endangered birds. Southland's own takahē often feature prominently in his work alongside many other threatened species as a metaphor for the destruction of the natural world. The documentary, which debuted at the 2022 NZ International Film Festival, features a series of portraits of Dixon which were shown at the Eastern Southland Gallery as part of Euan Macleod's recent exhibition "Flux". That exhibition, which finished on Sunday, featured a series of more than 400 portraits of his friend Dixon, created almost daily over FaceTime since 2021. The film unravels Dixon's past — growing up in Nelson and his formative years at art school in Christchurch where he met Macleod — dissecting his seemingly contradictory obsessions with science fiction, space travel, nature and extinction which have shaped his unique artistic style and vision. His work is both confronting and celebratory, revelling in the marvellous splendour of the natural world while also mourning its seemingly inevitable loss. As he describes them, the works are a "portrait of us" and an unnerving look into the future. Dixon said he just started wanting to paint endangered birds, and yet they were hard to find in the nineties. "You'd look them up and they're not endangered ... but now, so much is in a critical situation environmentally, I can paint them all. "That's how it all happened. That's why I became a bird person." — APL
Otago Daily Times
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Art seen: July 10
"Flux", Euan Macleod (Eastern Southland Gallery) "Flux" features en plein air paintings, alongside large-scale studio works, made in response to the landscape experienced on Haupapa Tasman Glacier. Many of the landscapes are populated with single shadowy figures or multiple figures linked together by climbing ropes. They are climbers traversing rocky mountain landscapes or icy crevasses. Sometimes there are monumental figures in the landscape that are indistinct from the land. Human scale and connectivity are placed within a real representative sense of an observed changing landscape. There is an affective sense of movement and light in these works, that, for the artist, are also about exploring an emotional state. In the adjacent gallery space is a floor to ceiling wall installation of over 400 small-scale portraits of the artist's friend Geoff Dixon. The project began informally as daily conversations over FaceTime during a Covid lockdown. Dixon had recently lost his partner and the work revolved around one friend supporting another at a time of grief. Here the genre of portrait painting is also inherently reflective of human connectivity. This exhibition comes to Eastern Southland Gallery from Australia, and is an Orange Regional Gallery and ANU Drill Hall Gallery partnership show. Macleod is represented by King Street Gallery on William in Sydney. "Shoemaker-Levy 9", Danny McNamara (Forrester Gallery) Shoemaker-Levy 9 was a comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994. It was discovered orbiting Jupiter from the Palomar Observatory in California by Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker and David Levy. Under observation, the comet was seen to be fragmented, having been broken apart by the gravitational effects of its proximity to Jupiter. It was estimated that the comet's fragments would collide with Jupiter's southern hemisphere and this generated a lot of interest across the field of astronomy. It caught the interest of Oamaru-based amateur astronomer and astrophotographer Danny McNamara (1947-2012) and this exhibition, where science meets art, includes a selection of McNamara's photographs of the event. To contextualise the images on show, there is a photograph of the 12 inch Beverly-Begg reflector telescope, refitted with a Canon AE-135mm SLR, that McNamara used to document the collision events. Over the course of about a week there were an observed 21 separate impacts. The glossy dark images with jewel-like images of Jupiter are each dated with a timestamp. For example, "Negative #3 20/07/1994, 10.32pm Konica Super XG 400", includes a relevant description of the specific event: "impact site of Fragment N rotating into view". Said to have been more visible than the Great Red Spot, one of the photographs documents the impact marks of the entire sequence of collisions. "George Burns Memorial Art Exhibition" (Forrester Gallery) Once a year, the George Burns Memorial Art Exhibition showcases art by the Waitaki District's young artists. The work on show is from local preschools all the way up to representative work from the region's high schools. A vibrant array of art in a range of media and subject matter fills four gallery spaces of the Forrester Gallery. George Burns (1903-1970) was born in Oamaru, became a journalist, then a Parliamentary reporter, and was New Zealand's first Fulbright Scholar. Burns was also champion of children's art and in the decades before 1970, in his role as editor for the Christchurch Star-Sun , he established the Christchurch Star-Sun Schools Art Exhibition that toured the South Island. In memory of this work, an annual art exhibition was established in Oamaru and has been running now for 55 years. The exhibition spaces are packed with colour. Art-making tables are set up in the main gallery with featured interactive elements to the work in other gallery spaces as well. Much of the work is made collectively and attributed to individual schools while some of the works are individually labelled, like the portfolio work from high school students. This celebratory and joyful exhibition runs until July 13. By Joanna Osborne
Otago Daily Times
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Quiz raises $11k for museum exhibition
An AI rendition of what the suite of Jo Ogier's suite of art pieces — "He Wai Apakura — Te Ara Pounamu" may look like at the new museum. PHOTO: SUPPLIED BY EASTERN SOUTHLAND GALLERY After raising $11,000 at a fundraiser, the Eastern Southland Gallery has the dream of buying Jo Ogier's art of the Mataura River in sight. More than 120 people were invited to Croydon Lodge for a quiz night, testing their skills of deduction and memory. A special portion was dedicated to identifying doors around Gore, which stumped a fair few of even the most well-travelled in the crowd. Following this, an auction was held with donated goods including art pieces, tickets to events, and an a history book collection. The organisers were hoping to raise $10,000, and they walked away with $11,000 to help buy Jo Ogier's suite of art pieces — "He Wai Apakura — Te Ara Pounamu / The River's Lament — A Pathway of Treasures". The suite details the flora and fauna of the historical Mataura River, and will hopefully feature heavily in the new Māruawai Centre museum facility. Jo Ogier with some of her paintings displayed at the Eastern Southland Gallery last year. PHOTO: ENSIGN FILES The planned exhibition, "He Hikoi a Te Awaawa Mataura — A Journey Through the Mataura River", will enable visitors to learn all about the histories, food gathering sites and the flora and fauna of the region. The art pieces will be digitalised and preserved, allowing for their permanent display in the facility. Gallery programmes officer Marcella Geddes said it was an excellent night with everyone getting on board. "We're absolutely thrilled with the support. It's an indication of just how much we do have out there for our programmes and events." The goal of having Ogier's art continue to educate and inspire others with a historical look at our local river was just around the corner, she said. "This is going to get us very, very close to our final goal."
Otago Daily Times
03-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Quiz, auction to help buy series
Graeme Stradling's screenprint of Lake Wānaka will be one of the auction items. Photos: supplied Brain power will be needed to help raise some funds for the purchase of an art series. The Eastern Southland Gallery's has launched a fundraising appeal to purchase Jo Ogier's series, "He Wai Apakura — Te Ara Pounamu / The River's Lament — A Pathway of Treasures". The gallery is holding a quiz night on June 14, 7pm, at the Croydon Lodge Hotel, to help the fundraiser. Jacqueline Byars holds her 2024 woodcut of the Eastern Southland Gallery. The gallery said, in a statement, by combining the fun of a general knowledge quiz with the excitement of an auction of art, books and experiences, the night promised to be an entertaining one. Auction lots included a "Cooking the Catch" culinary class with Judy Taylor, a two-night stay at a central Dunedin Airbnb, a bundle of native plants, a printmaking workshop with artist Jacqueline Byars, and artworks by Dick Frizzell, Janet de Wagt, Fane Flaws, Jacqueline Byars and Graeme Stradling. There will also be raffles, a silent auction and spot prizes on the night. Janet de Wagt, Rhododendron, 2025, gouache on paper. All proceeds from the evening will go towards the purchase of Jo Ogier's series of 26 paintings which explore the many species of native flora and fauna that once defined Māruawai and the Mataura River Valley. Digitisation will allow for all 26 images to become backdrops for permanent displays of taonga within the district's new Māruawai Centre museum facility, allowing for future long-term community engagement. To book contact the Eastern Southland Gallery. —APL
Otago Daily Times
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Connection explored in collections
An impressive showing of more than 500 portraits are now on display at a Gore art gallery, alongside a transtasman artist's study of New Zealand's largest glacier. Australia-based artist Euan Macleod painted hundreds of images of friend and fellow artist Geoff Dixon while they were on video calls together, beginning in the Covid lockdowns, after Mr Dixon's partner died. Macleod said his friend was a mostly willing and, at times, difficult subject that he painted rapidly, finishing up each painting in about 30 minutes. The 521 acrylic images have taken over the largest curved wall of the Eastern Southland Gallery. The show had its official opening on Saturday and an artist talk on Sunday morning, moderated by Macleod's longtime friend and collaborator Gregory O'Brien. The exhibition also includes a collection of works entitled "Flux", which are studies of Macleod's climbs of the Haupapa/Tasman Glacier in Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park. The artist was born in Christchurch and went to the Ilam School of Fine Arts at Canterbury University before moving to Sydney. The mountain-climbing paintings feature ambiguous figures trekking through the frozen scenery. A brightly coloured climber's rope is featured throughout the works, which cuts through the chilly, blue abstracted landscapes and connects his subjects. The climbers were "umbilically linked" during these climbs — although you might not be able to see your partner, you could feel their presence through the tension of the rope. "There's something really good about that reliance on people," he said. At the discussion on Sunday, Macleod put emphasis on the collaborations with his old friends and fellow creatives. The large metal etchings, zigzagged together to become a sculpture in the middle of the gallery, echoing the form of mountains, were an example of that collaboration as it was made with his friend, Townsville-based printmaker Ron McBurnie. The sculpture has been gifted to the gallery. A larger, more fantastical painting of figures crossing a tightrope over the sky and what looks like the Tasman Sea is also featured. "The bridge between Australia and New Zealand," Macleod said. Although he subscribed to the "look and put" school of painting and therefore did not place a whole lot of meaning on his images, it was hard not to notice a theme of connectivity throughout the collection. His works are on show until July 13.
