City Gallery - Neil Pardington’s `Elsewhere'

Photos revisit 70s Kiwi childhood
Neil Pardington’s Elsewhere’ opening soon
Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, 11 March – 9 April 2000

Stained mattresses and deflated balloons may not get a second glance from most people, but for photographer Neil Pardington, they have a story to tell - as worthy as the lines on a face or the contours of a landscape.

Pardington is the latest Wellington artist to exhibit at the Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, with his show Elsewhere opening on March 10.

Using a handheld camera in available light, he captures the iconic objects of his New Zealand childhood - swimming pools, old mattresses in baches and caravans. “The connection I make with many of my subjects has something to do with growing up in New Zealand in the 60s and 70s,” says Pardington. “They all trigger specific memories or feelings I have from my childhood.”

“Perhaps because of my work as a filmmaker I see everything as a potential story,” he says. “I think about the way the stains on a mattress map out its own peculiar history, for example, which then gets me thinking about the people who have had contact with this very intimate, but now discarded object.”

Neil Pardington is of Scottish and Ngai Tahu descent. He studied film and photography at the Elam School of Fine Arts. His work has since been widely exhibited, and features in private and major public collections throughout New Zealand. He was a finalist in the Visa Gold Art awards in 1998 and 1999. His work also featured in Rukutia! Rukutia!, the inaugural exhibition of Ngai Tahu artists.

Pardington is a director of MAP Film Productions with Stuart McKenzie and Miranda Harcourt, and has had a film featured at the Cannes Film Festival. He also heads Eyework Design & Production Ltd, which he founded in 1989.

Elsewhere is part of the exhibitions programme 360 – a full perspective on Wellington Art, sponsored by Designworks. The exhibition is accompanied by a website - www.neilpardington.co.nz. -
featuring an introduction by Lara Strongman, City Gallery programme manager, a short story by Stuart McKenzie, and the photographs. This will be launched on 10 March.

The Michael Hirschfeld Gallery was opened in November 1999 as a tribute to arts patron and former Labour Party President, the late Michael Hirschfeld. The new Gallery, on the ground floor of City Gallery Wellington, shows recent work and artists’ projects by Wellington artists, with exhibitions changing monthly.

For more information, images and interview opportunities, contact
Anne Irving T: (04) 801-3959 / F: (04) 801-3950 / email: anne.irving@wcc.govt.nz

ENDS

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