Lorene Taurerewa, Lonely Prairie, 2022. Image courtesy of the artist
Sam Mitchell, Jeaanne Baret 1(1740-1807), 2023. Image courtesy of the artist
Hannah Ireland, More Space To Ourselves, 2021. Image courtesy of the artist
Nephi Tupaea, Waikato Te Awa, 2021. Image courtesy of the artist
Whether it’s the neighbours you’ve never met, the cast of characters in old family photographs or the people you pass on the street; we come across the familiar faces of strangers every day. This sense of unknowing recognition is one of the reasons we are drawn to paintings of people even if we don’t know them?
This exhibition is an exploration of the painted figure shown through ten unique artist’s perspectives. Each has captured their own cast of characters and the environments they inhabit through a range of media. Some are based on actual spaces and faces while others are an amalgam of impressions either sampled from real life or plucked out of the imagination. There are towering cowboys, women inventors and sad flowers inhabiting miniature landscapes, windowpanes and shadowy stages. This is not an exhibition of formal portraits but a diverse celebration of ourselves reflected back at us in extraordinary ways.
The artists in this exhibition are Alan Ibell, Andrew McLeod, Hannah Ireland, James Ormsby, John Ward Knox, Kate Small, Lorene Taurerewa, Nephi Tupaea, Sam Mitchell and Ursula Bradley.