Hi Guys,

What are your plans for Easter? Catching up with family, getting into the garden, seeing some art?
Well Marlborough has a fine selection of art on offer. Barbara Speedy, the director of The Diversion Gallery and MVH Gallery sent me through the following:

"We have some excellent Easter viewing at The Diversion Gallery at Grove Mill Winery 

Including a stunning new oil painting by JS Parker – All Blues – which is just about impossible to capture accurately by photograph as the contrasting blues play tricks on the camera – or maybe they play tricks on the eye in the way the Blues play tricks on the ear!

There are warm accents and echoes above, the intense field of blues which is like looking into stained glass or deep water, icy echoes below and a fantastic rhythm and balance in this painting. It’s a substantial work at 1.5m x 1.2m, oil on canvas, and just draws you in.

This work has only just come into the show, as the large Smither painting has been released early from the group exhibition, giving us space and opportunity to exhibit a Parker that needs to be seen! We also have a change in some of the exhibited works by Richard Adams, alongside a selection of fine paintings by Don Peebles and Don Binney, and a sublime Taranaki screenprint from Michael Smither , plus Graham Bennett’s superb stainless steel sculpture in the vineyard.

The gallery will be open today, Saturday, Sunday and Easter Monday from 11am to 5pm; closed Good Friday. Come and enjoy the art with some fine Grove Mill vintages ( the new Pinot Noir is sublime with chocolate but my current favourite is the elegant Gewurztraminer dessert wine ). Just a couple of km down SH63 from Renwick, we’re on the left."

Marlborough Art Society’s Autumn Exhibition, showcasing new work from Art Society members, is also on until 30th March, if you are through in Blenheim en route to Diversion and of course, if you prefer to come through to Picton , Oriel Gallery’s light and airy gallery is well worth a visit for Val Griffith-Jones Exhibition Are You Sitting Comfortably?"

(see my last post)

So have a wonderful Easter, all be it totally out of whack with the season, Easter being symbolic of resurrection and spring, and here in the southern hemisphere autumn’s heavy morning dews, darker mornings and earlier nights are already here, but take some time out and enjoy whatever you choose to do.

For now, I’m off to have my morning muesli, before getting stuck into work,

Tika

P.S I haven’t forgotten, I promised to tell you about our wonderful Blue Water Lodge trip.

Just popped into Picton’s Oriel Gallery today as I missed the preview for Val Griffith-Jones exhibition,  ’Are you sitting comfortably?" which runs until 30th March, (10am-5pm daily) and the invitation looked enticing. The title of the exhibition comes from a BBC radio programme for children, which began with the words, "Are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin."

The textile based artpieces are a delight, full of wit, twinkle and skill. I especially loved the wee knitted jewel-coloured cottages, which have great appeal (thought crumbs threaded to childhood gingerbread cottages.)
Jodie the art gallery manager mentioned that the sun causes them to glow beautiful colours. Whilst I was there, ones of the delicately coloured embroidered caravans sold, so be quick!

The apron pieces give domesticity a different take, and are well worth a look and giggle…

So pop into Oriel and enjoy the textural delight of Val’s textiles.

Ok, I’m off to cook tea…..like a good wife!

Tika

Hi guys,

Just a fleeting one to point you in the direction of Oriel Gallery in Picton’s High Street, where there are some exciting artpieces from an artist called Daniel Campion – sure wish I could afford them!

Campion’s pieces are strong and full of texture, with amazing curved resin inserts in which fish seem to teem, but are arrested in situ. Well worth a look.

Okay back to my updates on Deborah Barton whose new works As in a Dream are displayed at  Fine Art Printmakers gallery at MVH Gallery, at Marlborough Vintners Hotel,190 Rapaura Road, Marlborough under the umbrella of the Diversion Gallery with Barbara Speedy’s direction.

For now, I’ll stop blatantly shoving you and get back to work….

Tika

There must be something in the air, southern iced landscapes keep drifting into my life, and capturing my attention after my last post about Claire Beynon and Rick Menzies Antarctic works.

Last night I popped in Oriel Gallery ‘s preview last night  to view Three Marlborough Printmakers Exhibition there, only to find Craig Bluett’s series of black and white monoprints, which were made by engraving metal oven trays (I liked the shape too!) exploring the fraility of the natural landscape and man’s impact in the Antarctic.  The delicacy of print definitely attracts me as a medium, and for anyone interested, on sunday 14th October 2007 Oriel (35 High Street Picton) will be hosting a floor talk and demonstration of printing by the exhibiting artists from 2-4pm, so hurry along.

Wendy Murphy’s work is full of colour, and delicate observation, and contrasts beautifully with Craig Bluett’s work.  Steve Austin’s work celebrates the black and white of monoprint and still life. The gallery was full of people enthusing over the art, whilst enjoying glasses of Seresin’s wine, so it will actually be great to go back and see the work in a more contemplative atmosphere. All the artists were very appreciative of the high quality of the gallery’s light, presentation and atmosphere, so well done Hazel, Jodie and the team.

Apologises for the picture quality, hard to photograph with glass reflection.

For now, best get back to work….

Tika

Bbbrrrrrr!!!!! It’s been freezing, a southerly, whipping up from the Antarctic….We nipped down to Christchurch and were a touch chilly with what we call a lazy wind, in that it goes right through you.  However, snug now, the stove lit, I can speak of Rick Menzies’ stunning photographic prints without a shiver. Exhibited at The Little River Gallery until 10 October 2007, alongside his sister, Annabel Menzies-Joyce’s beautiful cast glass and paintings, the exhibition South to Latitude 65 degrees is well worth a visit. The deep blue of the water, with the sharp clean cut ice, brooding subtle purples, greys and blacks of the skies and strong horizontals in some of the iceberg shots drew me, along with the pure turquoise of iceberg glass forms and contained bubbles captured in iceforms. Check out the website and have a peruse with their 360 degree visual tour.(cool,hey!) The adjacent Cafe is also full of organic healthy and delicious fare with great mochaccinos!

But if Little River is too far afield for you and you are drawn to anything that whispers Antarctic then be uplifted, The Diversion Gallery at Grove Mill are showcasing the work of Claire Beynon, ( featured in September’s NZ House and Garden magazine ) whose work in both pastels and acrylics truly celebrate the wild drama and romance of this icy wilderness.  The exhibition  Where there is Ice there is music is a treat, forget the dishes, the garden, that weekend job list, and go and see it!

Space and sound inspire Claire… the following is from Claire’s notebooks

"Silence here is both aural and spatial. It is silence with a presence and a voice. Rocks stand mute, but the ice has a wide repertoire of sounds. You have only to kneel amongst the cracks and fissures to tune into its songs… And all this white? White is no more than a disguise – beneath it, the continent is a dressing-up box of endless surprise. It is a place of extremes and contradictions. Honesty and deception compete for supremacy in a land that’s magical and seductive one minute, devastatingly harsh and destructive the next…’

Beautiful……..

 until later…….. tika