The Mahara

I'm heading to Auckland and other places tomorrow. But before I go I have to tell you about my upcoming show, and tell you all to come along to the opening. I'll be there - all going well; though still on my way home from those other places.

I've got six works in the show - four previously unexhibited, and one or two shot especially for the show.

The opening is on Saturday 16 December from 5pm at Mahara Gallery, Mahara Place, Waikanae (park in the Woolworths carpark and head into the mall, can't miss it).

EYES WIDE OPEN: Looking at Landscape

Mahara Gallery, 17 December 2006 - 25 February 2007

Twenty-four artists, most of whom have some connection to 'The Coast', have responded to its land, sea and skies, and our relationship to it, in Mahara Gallery’s major summer exhibition EYES WIDE OPEN: Looking at Landscape.

The exhibition includes many well-known contemporary artists and some exciting new names working in painting, works on paper, photography, video and sculptural installatiion.

Kapiti is a beautiful place to live and brands itself as Nature Coast, but like everywhere else, it is now facing the critical challenges posed by climate change. Extreme weather conditions, pollution, erosion, expanding populations and stretched transport and water infrastructures are serious local issues.

Some artists treat the natural world and its inhabitants - animals, bird and marine-life -with equal interest to the man-made environment.

Others see natural beauty and the other life-forms we share the land with as being under threat, conveying this in a mournful or ironic tone.

Landscape-based art can also be an imaginative or psychological construction, or reflect critically on the intersection between the human and natural world, in a way that stretches traditional approaches and can act as a sounding device for the ways we interact with the natural world.

Collectively these artists approach their practice with eyes wide open to current issues facing landscape and its treatment in art. They ask us as viewers to open our eyes to and consider the environment we cohabit in fresh and thoughtful ways.


Exhibiting artists

Catherine Bagnall & Julian Bishop, Darcy Parata, John Baxter, Hilary Robson, Paul Dibble, Catherine Russ, John Fuller, Simon Shepheard, Gary Freemantle, Amanda Smart, Himiona Grace, Neville Smitheram, Paul Gummer, Jo Torr, Peter Ireland, Edward Walton, Julie Midgely, Alan Wehipeihana, Anne-Marie O’Brien, Brett Whincup, Andy Palmer, Christopher White, Prunella Wylde

Curated by Janet Bayly, Acting Director, Mahara Gallery