Latest news with #GusFisherGallery
Scoop
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Exhibition Announcement: Because Of Where I Live, Daegan Wells At Gus Fisher Gallery
Press Release – Gus Fisher Gallery Because of where I live 6 June – 30 August Exhibition opening: Friday 6 June, 5.30 – 7.30pm Artist talk: Saturday 7 June, 1pm Gus Fisher Gallery is proud to present the first solo exhibition by Southland-based artist Daegan Wells in Tāmaki Makaurau. Selected as part of a newly established open-call programme called The Changing Room, Wells' presentation brings the materiality of his Southland surroundings into the gallery through a combination of handwoven textiles and furniture made from locally sourced timber. Since 2018, Wells has lived on his partner'sfamily farm near Riverton. Since the 1800s the farm and surrounding whenua have undergone many stages of evolution, including being the site of one of Aotearoa's earliest gold excavations, home to a large Chinese settlement in the 1870s, and supporting various sawmilling operations. For his presentation at Gus Fisher Gallery, Wells' partner's family farm becomes a case study for gaining insight into the people, industry and processes of the area. Wells has connected with his partner's extended family, interviewing and gathering archives from whānau who grew up on the farm, including residents of the farmhouse from the 1930s and his partner's great-aunt who used to live in the cottage. Drawing on fine craft skills learned locally from rural weavers, Wells has created a collection of household objects inspired by handmade furniture once found in the original 19th century farm cottage. This includes a series of daybeds and a hand-made sheepskin rug, which required the artist to learn how to tan and process leather for the first time. Learning new skills such as tanning leather speaks to a specificity of place, and methods of regeneration and renewal that can be commonplace processes for communities living rurally. For Wells, site and the politics of place have been a constant thread in the development of his practice, with this project emerging as a strong need to engage with and understand his surroundings. As part of the display, Wells has created a video drawing on existing stories, oral histories, photographs and fragmented archival documents. The resulting work extends the artist's research into the area where he lives, offering insight into the intersecting histories, persons, places and events that make up the place he calls home. He recalls: 'In early 2024, while walking, I found a Pakohe Toki half-buried and only visible in the rocky coastal soil of the rural Southland farm where I live with my partner. I took the Toki to the local rūnaka for advice on what to do with such a precious artefact. This led to a serendipitous encounter with a kaumatua from Ōraka-Aparima, who blessed the toki with a karakia in the car park of our tiny local Supervalue. The discovery of this long buried taonga and its repatriation has led me to reflect deeply upon the history of this place that I call home and the events that have shaped and defined it. ' – Daegan Wells.
Scoop
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Exhibition Announcement: Because Of Where I Live, Daegan Wells At Gus Fisher Gallery
Because of where I live 6 June – 30 August Exhibition opening: Friday 6 June, 5.30 – 7.30pm Artist talk: Saturday 7 June, 1pm Gus Fisher Gallery is proud to present the first solo exhibition by Southland-based artist Daegan Wells in Tāmaki Makaurau. Selected as part of a newly established open-call programme called The Changing Room, Wells' presentation brings the materiality of his Southland surroundings into the gallery through a combination of handwoven textiles and furniture made from locally sourced timber. Since 2018, Wells has lived on his partner'sfamily farm near Riverton. Since the 1800s the farm and surrounding whenua have undergone many stages of evolution, including being the site of one of Aotearoa's earliest gold excavations, home to a large Chinese settlement in the 1870s, and supporting various sawmilling operations. For his presentation at Gus Fisher Gallery, Wells' partner's family farm becomes a case study for gaining insight into the people, industry and processes of the area. Wells has connected with his partner's extended family, interviewing and gathering archives from whānau who grew up on the farm, including residents of the farmhouse from the 1930s and his partner's great-aunt who used to live in the cottage. Drawing on fine craft skills learned locally from rural weavers, Wells has created a collection of household objects inspired by handmade furniture once found in the original 19th century farm cottage. This includes a series of daybeds and a hand-made sheepskin rug, which required the artist to learn how to tan and process leather for the first time. Learning new skills such as tanning leather speaks to a specificity of place, and methods of regeneration and renewal that can be commonplace processes for communities living rurally. For Wells, site and the politics of place have been a constant thread in the development of his practice, with this project emerging as a strong need to engage with and understand his surroundings. As part of the display, Wells has created a video drawing on existing stories, oral histories, photographs and fragmented archival documents. The resulting work extends the artist's research into the area where he lives, offering insight into the intersecting histories, persons, places and events that make up the place he calls home. He recalls: 'In early 2024, while walking, I found a Pakohe Toki half-buried and only visible in the rocky coastal soil of the rural Southland farm where I live with my partner. I took the Toki to the local rūnaka for advice on what to do with such a precious artefact. This led to a serendipitous encounter with a kaumatua from Ōraka-Aparima, who blessed the toki with a karakia in the car park of our tiny local Supervalue. The discovery of this long buried taonga and its repatriation has led me to reflect deeply upon the history of this place that I call home and the events that have shaped and defined it. ' – Daegan Wells.
The Spinoff
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
Event noticeboard: Bread sculptures, celebrity choirs and camembert
The Spinoff's top picks of events from around the motu. When I read that Alex Casey turns to self-help book The Artist's Way when she feels herself Animorphing into that monstrous 3D modelled remote worker, I knew I needed it – office life is no less monstrous. On Saturday the book was ready for me to pick up at my local library. Squinting through my baggy tired eyes each night, I have just made it to the explanation of the artist's date. Julia Cameron wrote that to create, we draw from an 'inner well'. Ideally the well is a reservoir stocked full of trout. Some of the fish are big, fat and ready to eat, while others are babies that need more time. But the well needs upkeep – if we don't give it attention it becomes depleted, stagnant or blocked. There are no more fish. The main tool to nourish the well is the artist date, a two-hour commitment each week to to go somewhere alone (she is strict on solitude). It could be a walk, a visit to the best dump shop in town or any of the following events. Performance and visual art: Having it all, all, all Gus Fisher Gallery, 74 Shortland Street, Auckland Central 10am-5pm Tuesday through Friday, 10am-4pm Saturday until May 10 Performance: 1-2pm Saturday, May 10 Free Saturday is your last chance to see an artwork by one of my very favourite artists, Eva Mendieta. The film on show is from her famous Silueta series, where she carved the shape of her body into natural landscapes and filled it with organic matter like moss, sticks, flowers or grass. She often activated the works with fire, water or blood. There's a modesty to the five-minute video, with its grain and flickers, that adds to the intimacy of the work. Mendieta is one of nine international artists in the exhibition, bought together because their work was pivotal in the re-evaluation of female subjectivity in art between the 1960s and 1990s. Other key works are Cut Piece by Yoko Ono, Semiotics of the Kitchen by Martha Rosler, So help me Hannah by Hannah Wilke and Ever is Over All by Pipilotti Rist. It's not all serious – the installation of the works is big, bold and colourful, and many of them are tongue-in-cheek. On Saturday, local artist Prairie Hatchard-McGill will be staging a one-hour performance called Bread – she will make sculptures out of soft, white loaves! Northland Scenic Hotel, 58 Seaview Road, Paihia 10am Saturday, May 10 Kingsgate Hotel Autolodge, 104 Marsden Road, Paihia 1pm Sunday, May 11 At songwriters in the round events, musicians take turns performing songs, usually acoustic, and sharing the stories behind them. Visual Art: Sculpture Northland Whangārei Quarry Gardens, 37A Russell Road, Kensington, Whangārei 9am-5pm until Sunday, May 11 $5 – $10 Over 100 sculptures in lush subtropical gardens. Auckland Music: Can't Even, album release show, BUB Neck of the Woods, 155B Karangahape Road, Auckland Central 8pm Thursday, May 8 $20 – $30 Singer-songwriter-comedian-karaoke icon Priya Sami is celebrating the release of an 'emotionally unstable, classic hits debut'. She will be joined by a full band, a 'celebrity choir' and supported by She's So Rad. A gameshow like no other, Bonetown is hosted by Spinoff fave Brynley Stent. Each night five comedians will join her to battle wits. Poets Craig Foltz, Alison Glenny and Richard von Sturmer will be accompanied by music from Robert Sly. Waihī Muse, 5 Havelock Road, Havelock North, Hawkes Bay 10am-4.30pm Monday – Friday, 10am-3pm Saturday until May 29 Free Big, celestial paintings that give way to abstract layers of paint up close. New Plymouth You simply must go to see and hear the country's biggest heart-throb. Wellington War Memorial Library, 2 Queens Dr, Hutt Central, Lower Hutt 2pm Saturday, May 10 Free A chat between Michael Brown and Lower Hutt-born musician Luke Rowell (Eyeliner/Disasteradio) will be followed by a performance from Eyeliner! Nelson Music: Imani-J Elma Turner Library, 27 Halifax Street, Nelson City 2pm Saturday, May 10 Free Imani-J sings in English, Te Reo Māori and French, plays guitar, keys and swings between RnB, Neo-Soul and Afro Beat. Ōtautahi Music: Brouhaha With Keelty's, Polson, Toronja 'A brand-new free jazz group formed in Ōtautahi that offers ecstatic, burning, tangled webs of improvised sound complete with howling saxophone and guitar effects over a volcanic bass & drums team.' Ōtepoti Orokonui Ecosanctuary, 600 Blueskin Road, Dunedin 5pm Saturday, May 10 $60 The sun will be setting, the birds will be flitting around the protected forest, and the strings will be playing powerful, haunting, raw, emotional and sweeping music. Southland Film: The Big Bike Film Night St James Theatre, 61 Irk St, Gore 6.30pm Monday, May 12 SIT Centrestage Theatre, 33 Don St, Invercargill 7pm Tuesday, May 13 $13.50 – $28 Two and a half hours of action, drama, humour and inspiration in the form of short cycling films from around the world. This week, make a commitment to nourish your well. Ban your boyfriend from coming along and from calling you. See you on the other side.
