Home Talent

HOME TALENT

This year SCAPE has a significant contingent of emerging and established New Zealand artists.

BILLY APPLE
SCAPE’s most senior New Zealand artist is Billy Apple, one of the key figures in the pop art movement. Apple’s contribution to SCAPE is A HISTORY OF THE BRAND: 1962–2008. Sited in Ballantynes’ feature window he’s taken the opportunity to align himself with the top-of-the-range brands this retailer sells, by showing off two sculptures – both apples – that serve as his artistic logo. One is cast in bronze from 1962 and helped to launch the artist as ‘Billy Apple’; the second is a brand new polyester cast of the variety of apple the artist is developing with HortResearch, to be launched on the market as the Billy Apple.

For a chance to hear this iconic figure in New Zealand art speak about his work, come along to the Christchurch Art Gallery, 6pm Wednesday 15 October for a FREE artist talk.

AARON & HANNAH BEEHRE
Early mid-career artists, Hannah and Aaron Beehre have worked together for more than seven years. With Avon Lights, they have melded their fine arts and design backgrounds to create a subtle light work activated by movement sensors. Situated just below the surface of the Avon River, Avon Lights creates a magical experience for passers-by drawn to the water’s edge by what appears to be an underwater luminescent apparition.

Avon Lights can be viewed at Snell Walking Bridge (Snell Place and Locksley Ave junction) Worcester Boulevard Bridge, (Worcester Blvd and Cambridge Tce) and the Bridge of Remembrance (Cashel St and Cambridge Tce corner).

Avon Lights can only be viewed at night.

LONNIE HUTCHINSON
Informed by the rich cultural resources of her Polynesian heritage (Maori -Ngai Tahu, Samoan), Lonnie Hutchinson is a multi media, visual, installation and performance artist who exhibits nationally and internationally.

For SCAPE, Hutchinson’s artwork in ChristChurch Cathedral conjures a time, and a landscape, assuredly pre-colonisation. With deft skill she has developed an entirely new environment populated with birds, harekeke and kowhaiwhai patterns, offering an unusual experience of this culturally and historically significant site.

Beat the Feet can be viewed from Mon – Sat, 9.00am-5pm and Sun, 7.30am-5pm. ChristChurch Cathedral, Cathedral Square.

PAUL JOHNS

Paul Johns is an established Christchurch artist usually recognised for his poignant photography. Playing critically with concepts of gender and culture Johns’ pieces resonate with clarity, elegance, and depth of imagination.

With Strawberry Fields Forever, Johns reveals his interest in the connection between music and literary ideas, and the way in which an idea can promote a greater awareness of a philosophy through art. Expressed through a plaque dedicated to John Lennon entitled ‘Strawberry Fields’, first installed in Christchurch’s Hagley Park in 1990, Johns has reinstated this into Little Hagley Park. The plaque is surrounded by wild strawberries, offering the viewer a visual connection to the song the plaque refers to.

MARNIE SLATER
Free Tours by artist Marnie Slater is a series of tours around SCAPE which Slater has facilitated with a group of volunteers. Each volunteer was invited to work with Slater to plan, write and choreograph their own tour of a work, site or event connected to SCAPE 2008. These tours could happen anywhere, at any time, and there would be no restriction on the content or approach.

Free Tours is now active within the central city of Christchurch expressly for a public audience. The tours are free to participate in and each will respond to the works included in SCAPE 2008.

The next tour, a street talk on Regan Gentry, by Louise Donnithorne is this Wednesday 15 October. Meeting place: Stewart Plaza, 12pm.

For further information about the rest of the Free Tours schedule and brief descriptions of each available tour pick up a copy of the Free Tours guidebook from The Physics Room or Christchurch Art Gallery. A programme of each individual tour is also listed here or you can download a tour map and schedule here.

JAMES ORAM

Perhaps the most noticeable of all the New Zealand contributions, emerging artist James Oram has literally drawn our sights to the sky. Sea change, which consists of a small sailing boat hanging from the end of a mobile crane poetically brings together two important symbols of transformation and development - the boats and ships from the past and the cranes from the present. In doing so, Oram quietly comments on changing values associated with urban development, as well as Christchurch’s geographical closeness to the coastline.

One of SCAPE’s youngest artists, Oram graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury. He has since been awarded the Ethel Susan Jones Fine Arts Traveling Scholarship and served as the Chairperson of the High Street Project Trust from 2004-2005.

To enjoy this strange yet uplifting sight, visit Cranmer Square (in high winds the boat in See change will be temporarily lowered).

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SPONSOR PROFILE

Proudly anchoring James Oram’s boat to Cranmer Square is Smith Crane and Construction.

“Today, Smith Crane & Co operates the largest fleet of mobile cranes in the South Island and is dedicated to finding innovative solutions for all clients, be they large or small. While the brief for the SCAPE artwork, See change was a little “out of the ordinary” we take pride in all our work, and were happy to rise to the challenge of creating an artwork.

Working with James – and approaching the job from an “artist’s” perspective was very different for our team, but with both parties open to new experiences we soon resolved the requirements – and taught James a little about mobile crane driving in the process!

It is with great pleasure that Smith Crane & Construction lends its support to the SCAPE Christchurch Biennial and the celebration of all our civic spaces – be they on the ground – or in the air.”

Tim Smith, Managing Director
Smith Crane & Construction

ENDS

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