|
Xmas At The Asterisk
You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry - we're biding our time until Santa makes his grand entrance from one of our chimneys by putting together a Xmas Show. Join us for our launch/Xmas party Thursday 18 December 6.30pm, one week after the show opens on December 11.
While not a Christmas themed show - guaranteed reindeer free - Black Asterisk will be showing a collection of new work, including an array of never before seen works on paper by the likes Anne Braunsteiner, Prue MacDougall and others, more on this to follow. We've got works on paper, works in bronze, and works in stoneware, as well as exciting paintings and photography.
|
|
Ann Braunsteiner is making a reappearance in the gallery with a collection of loose, yet refined, drawings. Ann uses snippets of magazine photographs with intuitive additions of paint, pencil and pastels to recreate the female form. Their composition is clearly design oriented; yet they retain hints of neo-expressionism in their defacement. Small Works no.7 is shown above.
A key piece in our Xmas show will be one of Emma Bass’s floral portraits; New Zealand Native Bouquet, 1.43 pm as seen at the top. The photograph hails from her much-loved Imperfect series, but with a distinctly kiwi vibe. Emma's beautiful linen bound book 'Imperfect', released a few weeks back, is proving to be a great stocking filler. Copies are available here on our website.
|
|
The show will also feature a small series of watercolours by Beverly Rhodes entitled Spinning, shown above. Like stills from a film, these delicate paper paintings track the motion of a young girl spinning on a swing; the works are sweet and simple like their subject.
On the more solid side of things we will be showing Chris Moore’s recent contribution to Sculpture OnShore. Competitive/Cooperative, cast in bronze, is an election year special. Simply put, it comments on the need for balance between these opposing forces, and particularly notes the current imbalance between them.
|
|
Tony Lane will also make an appearance with stoneware ceramic works that he's been working on over the last 8 years. These pieces explore the intriguing similarities and differences between painterly and ceramic techniques. An example is shown above. Tony uses pre-fabricated pottery forms as a base for his glaze-paintings; layering and scraping the surface of the clay. The unpredictable nature of this process gives freshness to the work as each piece is an experiment.
|
|
A Colourful Opening
The recent exhibition preview and documentary launch to Ewan McDougall's 'Man Alive' was an enjoyable evening with a good turn out. For those of you who haven't made it to the show yet it runs until December 9. Detail from Ogden's Nutgone Flake is shown above.
McDougall’s paintings speak loudly of human excess. Autobiographical in many ways, they make comment on the abandon of McDougall’s past before his admission to Queen Mary Hospital for addiction in 1988.
As McDougall has said “many of my themes and paintings owe a great deal to the fun, frivolity, chaos and pain of the past as well as what I think of as the redemption.” The painted figures indulge in all manner of vices, as the air is thick with the feeling of disorder – teetering on the brink of chaos. The paintings he presents clearly contrast the austere or detached style that seems to prevail in much contemporary work. There is no question that his paintings contain a piece of him. They cleave the divide between the public and personal by laying everything on the table.
|
|
Asterisk Summer Hours
Black Asterisk will close Xmas eve, reopening Wednesday 14 January for our summer schedule: holiday hours will be Wednesday through Saturday, 12 - 5 pm until January 31. See you here!
|
|
|
|
|