The photographs for this exhibition were taken near the end of Brian de Montalk's four years in London. There are 22 inkjet prints, scanned from 35mm black & white film. 'East End '78' opens on Friday 9th September, 5pm-7pm, along with Grant Douglas' exhibition 'Going Electric'.

Both exhibitions run from 9th September to 8th October 2022, Normal gallery hours are 10am-3pm Monday to Friday, 11am-2pm Saturday, closed on Sundays and public holidays.

Artist Bio & Statement:

Brian de Montalk is a self-taught photographer living in Petone. He developed an interest in street photography while living in London's East End in the late 1970s. The East End was in stark contrast with bustling wealthy financial hub (City of London) just a stone's throw away.

At the time the East End was a facing massive change from redevelopment, social deprivation and racial discrimination fuelled by extreme right wing groups. This presented opportunities to document some changes over a period of a few days during a cold winter. Brian hopes the selection of 22 prints provides a glimpse of East End, with some of its people, markets, streets and places.

In 1982 one of the prints, Early morning, near Brick Lane (I) (then titled 'A Social Problem') gained an Acceptance in 25th International New Zealand Exhibition  of Photography.

Brian de Montalk's previous exhibition at Photospace was 'A Nation Divided' in 2021.

‘There is nothing so stable as change’
- Bob Dylan

Grant Douglas lives in Motuaka and has exhibited at Photospace Gallery numerous time since his first exhibition here in 1999. Following a period of hand-colouring his black & white silver-gelatin (darkroom) prints with oil paints, Grant has made the move from film-based to digital colour photography. This exhibition, 'Going Electric' was meant to show in 2021 but Covid-19 disrupted the schedule. We are very pleased to have it now. Opening: Friday 9th September, 5pm-7pm.

ARTIST'S PROFILE - GRANT DOUGLAS

I was born in 1951 in Upper Hutt, in the Hutt Valley, surrounded by hills and the nearby (at that time untamed) Hutt River. I quickly became a child gardener.

In the late sixties I attended the then very liberal Wellington Teacher's College, where I picked up a camera, under the mentoring of Des Kelly. I was influenced by the photographers Edward Weston, Minor White, Paul Caponigro and Harry Callaghan but decided my personal vision was to get closer to smaller subject matter.

Photography became a spiritual pursuit, a chance to explore the "otherness of things".

I left Training College and continued gardening growing vegetables and plants in a variety of situations, including 18 years at Riverside Community in Lower Moutere, while also in my spare time pursuing photography. A few years back, my one and only camera, a Pentax Spotmatic, died, so I went digital, exploring colour instead of black and white. It was an exciting new world.

In 2019 I produced a monograph of black and white photos, covering the full period
of my photography, accompanied by found texts - "Hunter of Beauty".
[Copies are for sale at Photospace Gallery, $65.00]

My method in producing my current digital work is not too dissimilar to when I was producing film-based black and white. The subject excites me, and the technique (fairly basic editing) is only there to enhance what I have seen - to communicate better with the viewer, who may interpret the image just as I saw it, or in their own way. All works are untitled to free the viewers mind from the constraints of words and labels.

This is my first solo exhibition of digital-based photographs. All works are archival pigment prints in limited editions of four.

"The only constant is change"
- Bob Dylan
 

Mā Wai Rā: New Māori Photobooks
 
Photospace Gallery, 1/37 Courtenay Place, Wellington.   18 August – 3 September 2022
 
Mā Wai Rā is a collection of photobooks from alumni and current students from Whiti or Rehua School of Art, Massey University.  It may be the first ever exhibition of Māori photobooks. 
Curated by Tessa Williams and Michael Mahne Lamb
 
The exhibition is supported by Massey University and Photobook  / NZ.

Kimberley
Hendrix Hennessy-Ropiha is a Wellington, Aotearoa based early-career artist of Māori (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Raukawa) and Pākeha (Irish) descent, graduating from Massey University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Design (Photography) with Honours.
Hendrix is a visual artist working predominantly within photography. His practice often revolves around social and political issues within Aotearoa and how art can help examine these issues in new ways. His recent ongoing work ‘We can travel only a short way together’ uses photography as a way of exploring the social, cultural and political reasons for the invisibility of suicide discussion in Aotearoa. 

Rose Poem
Mariama Hunia (Ngāti Awa/Ngāti Rangithi)
Mariama Hunia is an aspiring young photographer from the Bay of Plenty area. Her work primarily
explores how people express and share a range of emotions through a photography-based medium.
‘Rose Poem’ looks into themes of childhood memories, change and the preservation of family
archives, in collaboration with Keld Hunia. It is a tribute to the garden I grew up in; one my late mother was dedicated to supervising and taking care of, as she did with the children in these images.

Complements
Michael Mahne Lamb (Ngati Kahungunu) is an artist currently living and working in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington, NZ). He holds a Bachelor of Design with Honours from Massey University and is currently pursuing an MFA in photography at the University of Hartford, Connecticut.

Distant Disconnections
Maximillian Scott Murray (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Awa)
Distant Disconnections explores traditional concepts of individual, social and industrial connection to Aotearoa’s varied environments, alongside undertones of nature’s reclamation of space, and its own living adaptation and reconnection to te ao hurihuri - the ever changing world. 
Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua

Love, Tony
Deme Te Atawhai Scott (Ngā Maihi/Ngāti Awa, Ngā Mahanga a Tairi/Taranaki)
Scott is a photographer and filmmaker based in the Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington) area. Scott works within the boundaries of the photographic medium to investigate the interwoven politics of identity and revisiting what home is. Scott’s work derives from her mixed Māori and Pākehā whakapapa, reflecting on her ever-changing relationships with loved ones.  ‘Love, Tony' is published in memory of Scott’s Great Uncle, Tony McGregor, and what it means to miss belonging to a place and time. It is a taonga to share my whakaata alongside his own.

Te Ihorangi
Maija Stephens (Ngāti Kahungunu, Rongomaiwāhine, Ngāti Rangi) is an emerging artist/photographer based in Pōneke. Her practice surround issues concerning Te Taiao, her identity and experience as a wāhine Māori. She aims to decolonise the medium of photography itself through the way she wields the camera and by bringing visual precedence to complex concepts informed by Mātauranga Māori.  This takes form in both conceptual, studio, as well as documentary photography.  Maija is currently in her third year at Massey University’s Toi Rauwhārangi.

I will always whisper your name
Tessa Williams  (Ngāti Rakaipaaka, Ngāti Kahungunu, Pākehā)
This book expresses a journey of grief and healing after experiencing the loss of a pregnancy through abortion and miscarriage. A small collection of Polaroids intended for the viewer who understands this pain and requires the sensitivity that this small intimate format provides.