Jane Barry – Songs about rain

This body of work is comprised of inkworks on paper with the inclusion of one large painting on canvas.

They are largely inspired by water and abstracted aspects of landscape.

I like the idea that water is symbolic and a subconcious metaphor for change and the stream of life. Flowing, constantly shifting and taking any course.

Our relationships like rivers, like storms, like waves.

The colour palette I have chosen is not wholly representative of belonging to what our association of water is. Rather the images are depicted for compositional value, the aesthetic mood and emotional qualities they might portray. Be it the scent of soft falling rain or the sound of the ocean, frantic and looming.

I’ve tried to convey through both media, mark-making, texture and movement derivitive of a nod to Mother Nature.

‘Upon us all, a little rain must fall’

-Led Zeppelin

Kim Lowe – If Tao is a River…

If Tao is a River… it’s good to know where the rocks are…is a variation on a quote by contemporary Asian American taoist Deng Ming Dao, and is related to philosopher Lao Tzu (6th C BCE) who proposed the idea of life being like a river.

Olivia Spencer Bower set up her award to let artists follow their creative practice without any humbug and that is how I approached my year of painting. I began with aspects of Chinese aesthetics and traditional brush but just went with the flow in terms of subject. I was influenced by Olivia’s approach of painting portraits and landscapes of the people and land around her.

In this selection of Te Waipounamu ink and acrylic paintings there is something about tourism here too, familiar landforms that get photographed and shared by hundreds of thousands of visitors (but maybe not anymore now that the borders are closed). I have been attempting to paint them from a historical/faux historical point if view and maybe also attempting to fill the gap of NZ Chinese painters from Olivia’s era. Tupuna / Chinese Blue Lady is a composite portrait from a found image of an unnamed NZ Chinese woman in the 1930s with family features from my whanau.