Gallery 59
on 9th Avenue Tauranga,opposite the increasingly popular Rosie’s Bakery and Cafe, has a number of works on show from Linda Jane. I’ve been in twice to take a look, As a refugee from Auckland I identify with her water and yacht works and I love “City on Water” – it just screams out Auckland. As a country girl I also enjoy the rural water’s edge works. While primarily a display (not a formal exhibition Lynette Fisher explains) of the works of Linda Jane, the showing of works includes one or two Doreen McNeils, several Kristian Lomaths, two defined and geometric Mary Haywards and two assemblages by Graeme Crow I have to force myself not to touch.
Having a coffee at Rosie’s or have a minute or two to spare – go into Gallery 59 and have a look at these environmentally and water focused art works.
LIGHTWAVE GALLERY
Sunday afternoon and I’m over to see what the Directors Karen and Ken Wright are doing at their Lightwave Gallery at 31 Totara Street, Mount Maunganui. Fortunately Flaveur Breads is closed so I cannot buy their yummy goodies but as usual I’m offered a “cup of tea” and then I sit down and take a look at the things the multi-talented Ken Wright is doing online and in the Lightwave Gallery.
Take a look at Lightwave’s facebook page and website. The combined talents of Jim Colzato and Ken Wright have created a sequence of promotional clips for the gallery’s contributing artists. They are a combination of image, sound and visual effect. Ken tells me these clips are attracting regular hits and attention from both local and out of Bay of Plenty viewers.
In the Gallery Ken and Karen have consolidated the remaining works of the Boys Toys exhibition and hope to maintain part of Lightwave to display these quirky works. While we are talking, despite it being mid-winter, the door buzzer keeps on buzzing as visitors enter the Gallery.
TAURANGA ART GALLERY
Last year I was blown away by the display of student art examination boards and it’s the same again this year. TopArt2014 NCEA Level 3 Portfolios.
What’s so amazing is that despite the screamingly obvious talent of some of the students, art is not necessarily their principal career choice – a veterinary student who will be continuing her art studies; a superb painter who is planning to be a psychologist. I leave this stunning display smiling and my smile increases as I bask in the gleam and shine of the
Parekowhai piano. Glowing earth red this intensely carved piano is embellished with inlays of paua shell.
Up one leg of the intricately carved Steinway a creeper grows – what I call supplejack. The vine and leaves grow over the carving and elsewhere the creeper stems and leaves are held by a traditionally carved figure. I don’t know what it means to Parekowhai but I know that I have to be careful the supplejack in my hedges and trees doesn’t smother and supress them. Don’t miss seeing this unusual example of traditional carving. And check out the Tauranga Art Gallery website as there are all sorts of people actually playing this wonderful Steinway. The intensity and colour of the carving are intensified by the surrounding black simplicity of the accompanying
HOTERE works. “The late Ralph Hotere is hailed as one of New Zealand’s greatest artists…”
The exhibition is titled BLACK RAINBOW. The Tauranga Art Gallery Current Exhibitions statements says “Black Rainbow brings together works from two leading New Zealand artists, the late Ralph Hotere and Michael Parekowhai. This touring exhibition from Te Papa features five black paintings by Hotere alongside Parekowhai’s distinctive Venice Biennale work, He korero purakau mo te awanui o te motu: story of a New Zealand river. The exhibition is supported by Te Papa and local sponsor Radio Live.” The exhibition is available until 12 October 2014
CREATIVE TAURANGA COMMUNITY GALLERY
On my recent visit to Lightwave Gallery Ken Wright tells me he’ll be participating in a Creative Tauranga Community Gallery collective exhibition and what do you know? I’m down at “CTCG” on one side listening to Becks Watts about Creative New Zealand funding while on the other Ken Wright and Ashley Grant, Lightwave Sculptor are assisting CTCG with hanging these works. I’m not sure I peaked at all the works but there’s a bas relief sculpture by Ashley Grant and a wide variety of other works including a further instalment of Lightwaves’ RayGunRex ongoing saga and a series of abstract works by Miriam Ruberl I immediately want to take home because of the colour and shape.
Rosemary Balu
