Robyn Webster, Magdelane Clare, Zara Dolan
Robyn Webster Magdelane Clare Zara Dolan
Showing 7th July 2021 - 24th June 2021
Exhibition Information
Robyn Webster, Magdelane Clare, Zara Dolan - Robyn Webster Magdelane Clare Zara Dolan
Robyn Webster
Hold and Release
These new works are my first printmaking efforts for two years. Since my partner Llew died I have made four large harakeke installation works- for the inaugural concert at the Ron Ball Studio, Christchurch Town Hall; in Turanga / Christchurch City Library; in the South Quad of The Arts Centre; and at the Tai Tapu Sculpture Garden. That series of work explored various aspects of the Labyrinth, when I really was lost in grief.
These new works pick up the thread that has led me out of the labyrinth, out of the maze and into the light. It has been a blind but trusting stumbling forwards into a different life, and love. These figures and forms interact with each other, unconsciously performing aspects of my inner journey, searching for meaning and purpose in a changed landscape.
The vessel is for me a symbol of contained memory- memory as a map and a record of who we are. This includes the loads we carry around with us, the baggage of our personality and history, lugged along into new experiences and relationships. Memory, treasured and outpouring, overflowing with mixed emotions.
Printmaking from harakeke imprinted figures unifies the multiple threads of my practice. Working with harakeke began as my way of finding or creating connectedness into the earth, into this place, this land. This rootedness recognises and springs from my many interactions with tangata whenua over 40 years of raranga/ harakeke weaving- and always informs my relationship with the plant.
These figures are made with harakeke from my own plants; Arawa is the variety.
Robyn Webster, Addington, 2021 “Hold and Release II” harakeke imprint with ink on paper.
Magdelane Clare
Triple Headless Goddess
Magdelane Clare is a local mixed media artist with a post-graduate degree from Ara Institute of Art and Design. She specialises in print techniques and sculpture, yet her talent is evident through drawing and mark making.
Following on from studies, Magdelane explores the patriarchal ideology of women within medieval and Renaissance framework. ‘Triple Headless Goddess” manifests in portraiture conventions with its figures conceived from mythical, biblical and superstitious narrative. The series is a beginning stage of Magdelane’s interest in the esoteric and cult of the supernatural as her works recalls gatherings, summoning’s and worship circles
Magdelane employs a surrealist cut-up method to dis-establish archetypal imagery. Then reconfiguring the fragments into new mixed media collages, she allows chance to dictate the assembly process which further infuses an autonomous quality to her work. From here, Magdelane produces sensitively rendered drawings that may evoke syncretic ideals of the feminine.
Zara Dolan
Transfiguration
Zara Dolan is an Irish born, New Zealand artist. Zara’s current body of work explores the immediacy of the monotype print. Drawing on abstract expressionist gesture her mark making is direct and intuitive. The marks are mediated only by the application of colour and the printing process. It is Zara’s intention, that through the intermediary printing process, the emotive achieves form and chaos order. Zara recently completed her Masters in Fine Arts at Ilam School of Fine Arts.