Bartley Nees Gallery June 22 – 17 July 2004

Gallery Listings

Bartley Nees Gallery June 22 – 17 July 2004

In the front gallery: Graham Fletcher and Hemi Macgregor: ‘The Space Between’

‘The space between’, brings together new work from artists Graham Fletcher and Hemi Macgregor. Both Fletcher and Macgregor use the medium of painting to confront issues of cultural identity and examine the reality of their respective Samoan and Maori experience.

Graham Fletcher has been showing with Bartley Nees Gallery since the late 1990s. Last year he returned to university and is this year completing his Master of Fine Arts degree at Elam. He has used the time to experiment with paint and materials and to develop new approaches to mark making. The paintings in this exhibition show different aspects of this experimentation and are an interesting development on from his last solo exhibition 'Jungle Painting's in 2002.

“Jungle Paintings were concerned with the creation of an increasingly complex figure and field relationship on the painted surface. Line drawn figures were looped and tangled, inverted and overlapped so that they were difficult to see against the graphic 'jungle' backgrounds reminiscent of animal skins. Recently I returned to the Jungle canvases and decided to make the field and figure relationship even more complex and entangled by cutting the field away from the lines and laying the skeletal remains one over the other to build up a new surface. The result is somewhere between a 3D version of an Allen Maddox 'X' painting and one of Pip Culbert's seam works from the early 90s where she cut away the body of garments leaving only the seams.” Graham Fletcher, June 2004

Hemi Macgregor (Ngati Kahungunu, Ngai Tuhoe) is exhibiting for the first time with Bartley Nees Gallery. His paintings weave customary Maori values with issues of contemporary life. They explore the tension and dynamism inherent in juggling cultural and environmental values that may be at odds with the mainstream. Hemi is completing a Masters degree in Maori Visual Arts at Massey University. His graduating exhibition Back In the Hood was shown at Pataka at the end of last year.

“As an artist I look at my environment, how it affects me and in turn how I affect it. As a Maori I see myself as the environment. Maori negotiate two realities: one Maori, one Pakeha. We shift from one to the other as part of our everyday existence. Between these realities is another space, a space of transition and transaction where our personal reality is evolving with the evolution of time. It is this space in between that is constantly moving, being defined and re-defined that feeds my work. It is not the goal of my work to define this space, but it is my intention as an artist to use my work as a vehicle for the journey and destination that is in between.” Hemi Macgregor, (Taking Flight), 2004

In the back gallery: Neil Pardington: The Clinic June 22 – 17 July 2004

Acclaimed Wellington based artist Neil Pardington. Pardington has this year had work included in the two major survey exhibitions of contemporary art - the Auckland Art Gallery triennale 'Public/Private' and the City Gallery Wellington biennial 'Prospect'. The images he is showing with the Bartley Nees Gallery continue the exploration of public spaces seen in the two public gallery shows. His most recent focus is 'The Clinic' a photographic series that documents the interior spaces of hospitals. As Neil says:

"Here the photograph acts as a metaphor: although not present in the image, traces of events or people somehow remain, in the spaces represented, and consequently the images seem like stages set for unseen stories already told, or about to unfold." (Artist Statement, 2004).

Images attached: Graham Fletcher ‘Untitled’, 2003 enamel on canvas Hemi Macgregor ‘I.O.U.II, 2004, oil on canvas Neil Pardington ‘Hall’, 2003 colour photograph

For more information and for print quality images please contact Alison Bartley or Amy Wright at the gallery.

-- Bartley Nees Gallery 147 Cuba Street, Wellington Opening hours: Tuesday - Friday 11am - 5.30pm, Saturday 11am - 3pm Phone: 04 801 9795 Fax: 048019196 Check out our website at :

http://www.bartleyneesgallery.co.nz/

ENDS

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