What Are Galleries Showing at New Zealand's Biggest Art Fair?
Directors of four New Zealand galleries—Jhana Millers, Sumer, Jonathan Smart, and Bergman Gallery—share highlights of their booths ahead of Aotearoa Art Fair in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland this week, for its first iteration under the ownership of Art Assembly.
Hannah Ireland, Back To Sea (2024). Flashe and acrylic on (stitched) canvas. 1400 x 1300 mm. Courtesy the artist and Jhana Millers.
Jhana Millers, Director of Jhana Millers
We are presenting a solo exhibition by early-career artist Hannah Ireland. Hannah is based in Tāmaki Makaurau and has a joint degree in fine arts and psychology. From her teenage years Hannah has been painting portraits, and since graduating from Elam in 2022 has become well known for her ambitious, murky, and somewhat haunting works.
For this year's fair, Hannah is working in paint on canvas and incorporating motifs and patterns as an exploration and expression of her whakapapa [genealogy]. She has brought in the koru [coiled spiral form] as a repeating motif. Hannah has also disrupted each canvas through cuts and stitching—creating patterns and indentations that influence the compositions.
Dan du Bern, Director of Sumer
We are showing a solo presentation of Vienna-based New Zealand artist Martyn Reynolds. He brings curious works that are as glibly humorous as they are brutal and strange; nevertheless they attain an enigmatic beauty and charm in material and form.
The works include Martyn's recurring 'hook and hammer'—a strange, nebulous form that resembles a sickle, but also a doorway or an opening—and comprise collages of found photographs, printed onto velvet or cast aluminium which is treated silver or black.
The found photographs—usually thumbnail sized—are often from press clippings or television. Some of them include political leaders from the Cold War era, through to contemporary figures like the Kardashians. Martyn is interested in popular culture, and these images seem to be emblematic of the time—not just now, but also of recent history, and how we collectively conceive of the image today.
Jonathan Smart, Director of Jonathan Smart Gallery
A highlight of the stand will be two quilts, Dippy I and II (2024) by Mark Braunias, made in collaboration with Brenda Ronowicz. I have enjoyed the privilege of working with Mark for 36 years. He is one of Aotearoa's unsung senior painters, graduating from the Ilam School of Fine Arts in Canterbury in 1987 in the same cohort as Peter Robinson and Séraphine Pick. He lives in Kawhia where each day he draws, thinks, draws again, and sometimes makes paintings. They are on paper and canvas, both big and small.
Mark's work is consistently wonky, abstract, and biomorphic. His sense of colour has become sharper, more high key. The way he manipulates line and colour around contour and form is utterly compelling. His paintings make me smile—they are humorous, thoughtful, and delightfully, almost human.
Ben Bergman, Director of Bergman Gallery
Bergman Gallery brings a diverse group showing of 11 painters including Telly Tuita, Luise Fong, and Joan Gragg. Tuita, fresh off his solo exhibition Tongpop's Great Expectations at Campbelltown Arts Centre in Sydney, delivers a new triptych, A figure is tormented by a Tevolo Diva (2024). Tuita's current works delve into his childhood memories of Tonga, which sets the stage for this operatic drama within his iconic Tongpop universe—one where biography and theatrical archetypes perform in Ngatu [decorated bark cloth] latticed landscapes.
Luise Fong's expressive canvases are characterised by an aesthetic formalism, where circular, organic motifs have been an element since the 1990s. Her most recent blue 'Nocturne' paintings are inspired by the song 'Sæglópur' (2005) by Sigur Rós. Many of the forms, materials, and colours serve as metaphorical representations of the ideas and emotions invoked by this powerful song.
A rare offering from Joan Gragg, The Umukai (2005), draws the viewer into a quintessential Cook Islands scene of a formal Island feast. The moment appears frozen in time, with the artist's tableau capturing the entirety of the event in one multi-dimensional frame. Gragg's use of colour reflects her tropical surroundings, and the composition and structure of the painting catapults the viewer directly into the scene—to laugh, eat, and re-experience the moments we often take for granted. —[O]
