Autobiography of a garden Photography by Helen Mitchell "In my garden there is a wilderness, alive with its own agenda where the plants and creatures compete and are subject to the tensions of climate and my attempts to colonise this environment. Avocado pips carelessly discarded spawn beautifully curved green leaves with a hint of bronze. Oxalis battles with dandelions, and bottles and jars appear as soon as I put my spade into the ground to cultivate new areas and trench though clay to replace decades-old drains. "In this show I’m revisiting twentieth century photographic practice by shooting on a Agfa Clack from the 1950s and exploring how these images might relate to my garden and to images created using digital imaging techniques common in contemporary camera systems. I’m invested in place and the space that I inhabit in my garden, the environment is constantly evolving as my occupation progresses. This work is the fourth in a series of works that are loosely connected by the theme of gardening and nature. "Work on this theme began with my project A Dose of Gardening. This was an online response to the first Aotearoa covid lockdown where participants were invited to contribute photography, writing and other artworks to an online exhibition platform. My second work titled A Month of Mondays was part of the Photospace online collaborative response to covid lockdown, A Month of Sundays. This work was a series of photographs depicting community intervention in a woodland area near my home. "My most recent project Forest Bathing: Beyond the Picturesque reflected an expansion of my practice by documenting a selection of personal and public garden rooms from sites around Aotearoa and was exhibited at the Refinery Artspace in Nelson last summer. This exhibition refocuses on small details through an expanded survey of my own garden in Wellington. This selection of 17 photographic works comprise 7 black and white analogue images from film and 10 colour digital prints." 'Autobiography of a garden' runs from Friday 7 July to Saturday 5 August in gallery room 1. The opening is on Thursday 6 July, 5pm-7pm. Normal gallery hours are 10am-3pm Monday to Friday, 11am-2pm Saturdays. The gallery is closed on Sundays and public holidays - Matariki on Friday 14 July. Helen Mitchell is a Senior Lecturer, Kaiārahi, Photography
Whiti o Rehua School of Art, Toi Rauwharangi College of Creative Arts at Massey University. Previous Photospace Gallery exhibitions: 2003 - 'The Kaimanawas' 2011 - 'Shifting Identity' 2012 - 'Portraits of Ink' 2013 - 'Tattoo Collectors' 2019 - Downtown Community Ministry group exhibition (co-curator/photographer).
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'Pilgrimage' - artist statement I was born and raised in Christchurch, and it was during high school that I discovered my love for photography. I excelled in this subject and decided to pursue it further by moving to Wellington to study photography at Massey University. After completing my studies I tried my hand at working in the commercial photography industry but soon realised that it wasn't a good fit for me. Feeling unfulfilled and in need of a fresh perspective, I decided to take some time off and embarked on a personal journey by walking the South Island Section of Te Araroa, a trail that spans from Cape Reinga to Bluff. Starting from the Queen Charlotte Track, I eventually finished on Stewart Island. Through this experience, I came to appreciate the power of walking as a means of reconnecting with nature and recognising our place within the environment. We should see ourselves as a part of nature, not an external force upon it. While living in the city can have many benefits, I found that it was important for me to step back and gain a new perspective by immersing myself in the natural world. “I went in the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life. And see if I could not learn what it has to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I have not lived.” - Henry David Thoreau This is Jake Giles' first solo exhibition at Photospace Gallery. He was in the 2020 group exhibition A Moment of Quiet the year he graduated from Massey University's photography degree programme. Pilgrimage is a tight selection from many images taken during Jake's recent and extensive walking trip - the length of Te Wai Pounamu and beyond. His exhibition opens on Friday 12th May, 5pm-7pm, and shows in gallery room 3 until 2pm on Saturday 3rd June. There will be an exhibition of paintings by Hana Carpenter - 'Borderland' - in gallery room 1. This is a Gilberd Marriott Gallery exhibition, opening the same evening and running the same dates. ![]() 'Piecemeal' is the artist's exploration of their experience of trauma and trauma therapy. It is a visual and personal representation of how trauma has affected their sense of self, how it has fragmented and fractured all aspects of the self and bled into all facets of their life. But it also about how recovery from trauma is making sense of ourselves; it is taking the slow process of looking at individual parts of ourselves, our childhoods, our intergenerational trauma, and reforming ourselves back into something whole again, something functional, although never final. The pieces we pick up and rearrange may resemble our old selves, and they often fit together in familiar, sometimes disturbing and unexpected ways. The artist has shot the series on Polaroid I-Type film, then lifted the emulsions, rearranging and layering them onto watercolour paper. 'Piecemeal' runs from 5pm on Friday 14 April (opening) to Saturday 6th May, 2023, at Photospace Gallery, 1st floor 37 Courtenay Place, Wellington. Normal gallery hours are 10am-3pm Monday-Friday, 11am-2pm Saturday, closed Sundays and public holidays. Admission is free, artworks are for sale. Tracey Kearns has shown at Photospace Gallery previously in 2011, 2012 and 2014. |
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