Happy New Year!
We have an exciting exhibition schedule planned for 2023, including a number of solo shows by highly accomplished artists new to Fe29. In February, A Parliament of Owls will introduce Auckland artist, Bronwynne Cornish, one of New Zealand’s best known makers of sculptural ceramics. Following this will be an exhibition of early prints by Central Otago based Kristin O’Sullivan Peren, a multimedia artist whose practice responds to the extremes of land, language, and object.
To welcome-in 2023, our new Summer Collection includes selected new works from four current Fe29 artists. The feature work, Loose Ties from Marté Szirmay’s 2019 Loops and Knots series, is a precursor to Contained and Protected, the work awarded curator’s choice for the McConnell Family Supreme Award for Sculpture in the Gardens (Auckland) 2019/20. Accompanying Szirmay’s bronzes are ten fun watercolours created by Philippa Blair in Venice, California in 2002. This is the first time these works have been shown.
In the hallway are four encaustic works by Amy Melchior, including two pieces completed just this month. An older work, Lapis – Metamorphic Rock, is a special painting created using pure lapis lazuli pigments made in Italy especially for her. A solo show of new Melchior work is scheduled for later this year. A selection of bronzes by Samantha Lissette (including her new miniature Botanicals, Vegetables and Insects) round out the show.
Update – late additions to the show include Viky Garden’s most recent work, Uma with Bird (2023), and 12 works by textile artist, Sandra Heffernan, from her Indigo Moon series. Some of the repurposed plastic, metal and crystal were left over from material Heffernan used in Michael Crawford’s first cloak in Phantom of the Opera, while some of the antique materials were left over from a dress she made for Diana Rigg to wear in Follies – treasures from the 1980s.