FIONA PARDINGTON

Starkwhite is presenting a large new body of work by Fiona Pardington, entitled Nabokov’s Blues: The Charmed Circle. Returning from its debut at the inaugural Honolulu Biennial in early 2017, the works focus on the butterfly collections, notes and drawings of renowned novelist and lepid​opterist Vladimir Nabokov. Fascinated by what she describes as the boundless passion Nabokov felt for his tiny blue butterflies—and for every other colour and kind of butterfly—and granted rare access to the archives, Pardington meticulously documented his butterfly collections in Europe and America, including in her final work only those specimens caught and killed by Nabokov himself. While ‘the charmed circle’ the title refers to, for Nabokov, is his microscope, it was, for Pardington, her camera lens. “At times, I felt as I were literally peering over his shoulder as I photographed, bathed in his love for the immortal moonlight-blue winged creatures he captured, crushed and pinned out ‘to sleep’ forever.”

Dr. Fiona Pardington wishes to acknowledge the generous support of Creative New Zealand; Distinguished Professor Brian Boyd, University of Auckland; Macroscopic Solutions; Robert Dirig; Anne Freita; Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation; Anthony Marx, Carolyn Broomhead, Thomas Lannon of New York Public Library and Starkwhite, New Zealand.