Ferner’s Special Creatures Recreated Exhibition

Ferner’s Special Creatures Recreated Exhibition

Some of the finest animal works by top New Zealand artists feature in the Ferner Galleries’s Creatures Recreated exhibition in Auckland next month.

Animals, birds and fish have a long association with art, Ferner Galleries Parnell manager Natalie Poland said today.

``By surveying the history of animal representation in art this exhibition celebrates the work of artists who have ‘recreated’ creatures through creative endeavour.’’

As one of New Zealand's leading galleries, Ferner is the only art dealers in their field to operate in both Auckland and Wellington.

Drawings by Auckland’s Don Binney feature in the July 12 – August 14 exhibition. Binney is topical due to the fact that his paintings of New Zealand birds now fetch up to $80,000. A retrospective exhibition, mounted by Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt is currently touring major public galleries. Binney is best known for his iconic bird paintings and is regarded as one of New Zealand’s finest realist painters. His conservationist views were made apparent in many of his bird paintings, notably Last Flight of the Kokako (1979) which was used in environmental protest movements. His 1971 sketch of the takahe features in the Ferner exhibition. Binney lives in Auckland and his works are held in major public collections in Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton. Poland said dating to prehistoric times, the use of animals as an inspiration for western art, is as old as art itself. The walls of France’s Lascaux caves feature depictions of horses and bison from the Palaeolithic period and in classical times images of fish and animals were incorporated into Greek and Roman floor mosaics.

``The works in out exhibition showcase images by New Zealand artists that feature domestic animals, endangered birds, fish and mythical beasts,’’ Poland said.

Pets, livestock, animals, fish and birds have played a significant role in the formation of New Zealand culture with several becoming symbols of New Zealand identity.

``The sheep and the kiwi have become national icons while other fauna and creatures have made their way into indigenous folklore.’’

Paintings of sheep range from the 19th Century watercolourist Charles D. Barraud’s to more recent renditions of sheep as seen in Trevor Moffit’s Sheep Paddock Number 4 (1994).

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