TIRA WALSH

Calling on a range of gestural and compositional devices, Walsh works with both acrylic and enamels to carve colliding layers of texture and tenses into her canvases. Surfaces break and bend frequencies, lines cut and swerve. Underbellies and dormant imaginaries rise to split surfaces and shift codes. Opening each canvas to interference and background noise in this way, Walsh draws subterranean sensations across the line and into focus, pushing the multidimensionality of lived existence and the canvas to full volume. Grasping the responsive and multidirectional potential of the medium without surrendering a clear center of action, her practice takes a stance that encompasses both fluidity and strength.

The paintings assembled for Hustle are drawn from work Walsh has produced over three-year period from her large shared studio in Mount Albert. Working with a range of support structures, each painting is first developed in a supine position with the artist working on both sides of the canvas. Through processes of collage-like layering and subtractive stenciling, Walsh elaborates on the language she has built from collections of found sources and self-referential abstract narratives. Pitching her work back at the world, rather than siloing off its commentary and effects, Walsh gives her game a head start with the title of this exhibition. There’s no body laid bare, nor retreat from worldly complexity signed to in this oeuvre. Rather, just a claim to one’s own hustle, and a nod to that of others.

One of the most exciting painters to emerge from Auckland’s art schools in recent years, Tira Walsh has begun to accrue an impressive exhibition history. Walsh graduated with a Master of Creative Practice from Unitec in 2018. Recent group exhibitions include Urbanize, Te Po Gallery (2018); Never An Answer, 12 Abstract Painters, The Vivian, Matakana, curated by Linda Tyler and Lucinda Bennett (2018); Drawcard, State Gallery, Mt Eden, Auckland (2018); My Hands are Visibly Soiled, Snowwhite Gallery, Unitec, Auckland (2018); Roundhouse, TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre, Auckland (2017-2018); Glaister Ennor Art Award Exhibition, Sanderson Contemporary, Auckland (2017).