Michael Collins

On A Blue Table: Recent Still Life Painting

Observational painting, that is painting from (still) life, involves translating and simplifying what you see as light changes slowly over and between different materials and surfaces. What begins with spots of adjacent colour ends with a balanced surface and unified presentation – a situation where objects and interspaces have an underlying colour and compositional interdependency in the shallow picture space they inhabit. 

This “paint what you see” approach is constructive. It is created from the arrangement of physical things rather than a flattened image.  This directness is appealing; you discover the structure and express the interrelationships between things and the spaces created around those things. You notice and see connections where none are meant to exist. 

The objects represented are sourced from the recycle bin, the windowsill, the bookshelf, the garage bench or school desk. They audition for parts on a blue kitchen table often with old painting boards as backdrops. Some are placed and moved, then considered and drawn, before the painting process begins. 

Ina Johann

A State of Being

Mapping another life – A state of being in disguise of a cloud 

This ongoing series started in 2017 and centres around a fleeting cloud hovering in a mesmerising blue sky. The cloud acts as a metaphor, a visual response to an atmosphere of uncertainty and environmental shifts. Beauty and wonder are undeniably all around us, but seem less visible in these testing times. Johann’s mark making, a searching and drawing out and a layered photographic fragmentation, are building blocks for the clouds’ changing ‘landscapes‘. They are propositions and reflections, emotional responses in finding stability and new ground.

A Rambunctious Garden
“The shifted physical space experienced during recent crises brought new impulses into my work. A deceleration and intimate exploration of my immediate environment caused a shift in the way I felt connected with everything around me. Observing in ‘slow-motion’ has been my modus operandi. Seeing nature through an almost microscopic lens has been a forming experience. Photographing and recording unique forms and plant life around me has become a ‘daily’ habit. The photographic collages I created in this series, are first layers in a process of unfolding and forming what has not been seem yet – a process of becoming.

Drawing and painting over these constructed realities acts as a device – to survey, search, un-peel and re- construct layers of meaning in search for a new physicality/reality. Re – Mapping territory has become a constant notion in my life and work.”

 

Edwards+Johann

Geomorphic conversations – act 2

Geomorphic conversations – act 2 are new works by the collaboration EDWARDS+JOHANN and another take and flow on from the volcanic artists’ residency project in Whakatane  Vulnerability, change, transience, permanence and the precariousness of life are at play here. These are strange concretions forming; both made from natural and unnatural materials creating painterly, protruding and unruly shapes. This series evolves in a lab-like experimental modus to reveal what is not known, not quite here, has not fully formed yet. 

Life between buildings – divers 2024 play out undefined actions and events. These miniature/small worlds propose an intimacy in dialogue between the small sculptures and the viewer and allude to connections around human relationships, often with a twist or a humorous element. They reflect the ways we connect with our surroundings and speak to the human condition in a small way.

Edwards+Johann

Life between buildings – divers 2024 play out undefined actions and events. These miniature/small worlds propose an intimacy in dialogue between the small sculptures and the viewer and allude to connections around human relationships, often with a twist or a humorous element.  They reflect the ways we connect with our surroundings and speak to the human condition in a small way.  

Debbie Templeton-Page

Thoughts in the Wind

“From the moment I first picked up a hammer and chisel sculpting has been my passion and obsession. Sculptures and rocks are always s twisting and turning in my mind, inspired not only by the way they look but also the way they feel. The stone ,clay ,wax ,resin and lead crystal sometimes has a mind of its own, other times the sculptures I create are a reflection of my life, a way of expressing myself and sometimes a bit of both.  I have worked in many different mediums over the years, all I love for different reasons. Bluestone (Basalt) has had me in ‘its grip’ for about 18 years .  The natural beauty that emulates from the stone just amazes me.. It is a natural resource that is quarried in Timaru, is a part of the local shoreline and hills.