Ocula Report 58th Venice Biennale: May You Live In Interesting Times 24 May 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula The 58th Venice Biennale, May You Live In Interesting Times (11 May–24 November 2019), certainly benefitted from low expectations, given the lacklustre curatorial of the previous edition, when different segments of the show were conceptually framed with titles like 'Pavilion of Joys and Fears' and 'Pavilion of Colours'. Add to this the...
Ocula Conversation Zheng Bo Hong Kong-based artist Zheng Bo's social, ecological, and community-engaged art practice has, in recent years, focused on moving beyond a human-centred perspective to an all-inclusive, multi-species approach. He takes up marginalised plants and communities of people as subjects in his large-scale interventions, which reintroduce wildness into...
Ocula Report Auckland Art Fair 2019: Conversations Extended 24 May 2019 : Sherry Paik for Ocula The weather was clement for the annual Auckland Art Fair (2–5 May 2019), which was again at The Cloud on Queens Wharf. This year's edition was a get-together of 41 galleries, mostly from around Auckland and across New Zealand, with 5 spaces hailing from Sydney and the rest from Cook Islands (Bergman Gallery), Hobart (Michael Bugelli Gallery),...
In 1998, a year after Francis Upritchard (b. 1976) graduated from the Canterbury School of Fine Arts in Christchurch, New Zealand, she re-located to London. Within two or three years of arriving she had become known for unusual sculpture made from modelling putty or fur, ambiguous works that exploited the conventions of museological display and the visual characteristics of tribal artifacts or taxidermied animals. Mixing satire, humour and poignancy, often with the use of scraps of oddly shaped materials that she found, Upritchard ascended quickly, reaching the Becks Futures shortlist in 2003 and winning the Walters Prize in New Zealand three years later.
When Upritchard exhibited in the Venice Biennale in 2009 (representing New Zealand jointly with Judy Millar) her new work attained a more pronounced lyricism. Presented on beautiful inlaid tables - not plinths - there was a consistent emphasis in expressive body gesture, combined with greater theatricality and more vibrant colour.
Upritchard has works in many New Zealand, British and international collections.
Francis UpritchardPruitt Igoe, 2018 Steel and foil armature, paint, hair, modelling material, fabric, plastic glasses
Francis UpritchardBenjamin and Marie's Neighbour, 2016 Watercolour on paper
Francis UpritchardInokuma Rug Drawing Purple / Green, 2014 Watercolour on paper
Ocula Report Auckland Art Fair 2019: Conversations Extended 24 May 2019 : Sherry Paik for Ocula The weather was clement for the annual Auckland Art Fair (2–5 May 2019), which was again at The Cloud on Queens Wharf. This year's edition was a get-together of 41 galleries, mostly from around Auckland and across New Zealand, with 5 spaces hailing from Sydney and the rest from Cook Islands (Bergman Gallery), Hobart (Michael Bugelli Gallery),...
Ocula Report Art Shows to See in Auckland: The Lowdown 27 Apr 2019 : Sherry Paik for Ocula This year, the month of May kicks off with the annual Auckland Art Fair (2–5 May 2019) at The Cloud on Queens Wharf, where over 40 leading galleries from the Pacific Rim will exhibit. A carefully curated selection of talks and exhibitions will accompany the fair, including the 2019 Projects Programme organised by Francis McWhannell titled...
Ocula Conversation Francis Upritchard Artist, New Zealand Francis Upritchard’s artistic lexicon is perhaps best known for her curious, and at times disconcerting, small-scale figurative sculptures which in their fantastical forms also embody a constellation of historical and contemporary references. These figures inhabit a universe whereby imagination and the ancient and contemporary collide....
Ocula Report 'Freedom Farmers' At The Auckland Art Gallery 4 Dec 2013 : Kate Brettkelly-Chalmers for Ocula Occupying the lion’s share of exhibition space at the Auckland Art Gallery, Freedom Farmers is said to be the museum’s largest survey of contemporary art in the last twenty-five years. Curated by the gallery’s own Natasha Conland, the exhibition looks at how the utopian energy of the 1970s is being artistically deployed in...
Related Press Frieze's Abby Bangser on the 2016 edition of the London fairs Whitewall : 6 October 2016 Joining Frieze in January 2015 as the Artistic Director for the Americas and Asia, Abby Bangser has brought over 10 years of experience in the art industry (at institutions like the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California) to assist in the global success of the fairs, particularly with...
Related Press Home and work: Martino Gamper and Francis Upritchard T Magazine : 25 February 2016 It takes a very specific perspective to appreciate the beauty of linoleum — especially in shades of pea green and dishwater brown. Where most would see cheap industrial material, Martino Gamper envisions endless possibilities. ‘‘I never feel limited by materials, techniques or color in my practice,’’ says the Italian...
Related Press Other Elsewheres: New Zealand at the Venice Biennale The Pantograph Punch : 12 June 2015 New Zealand's official platform at the Venice Biennale began in 2001, and our formal representation was arguably already overdue at this point. There had been anomalous instances of New Zealanders exhibiting at the Biennale: Frances Hodgkins (she was meant to be in a group show representing Britain, though this was never realised because of World...
