For Immediate Release

FORESTAURANT
Opening preview: 25 September, 5:30pm
Exhibition runs: 25 Sept – 14 Oct, 2007

An exciting group of 8 breakthrough Auckland artists, gaining significant recognition for their practice, will exhibit their work together in a new show at City Art Rooms.

Forestaurant is an artist-organised exhibition with the roster of collaborators emerging from common intersections in their lives and artistic endeavours. The title is a casual play on words, describing the passage from the outside world to indoors. Nature has become dissected and expanded in this multi-sensory exhibition that plunges into the depths of suburbia and manufactured landscapes.

Artists participating in Forestaurant include:
- Conor Clarke (Overall prize winner, Mt Eden Young Artist Awards, 2004; Finalist, Metro Canon Young Photographers Awards, 2006)
- Fiona Connor (Sculpture/video winner Mt Eden Young Artist Awards, 2004, founding member of artist-run Special Gallery in Auckland; Artspace, Gambia & Castle, Auckland)
- Julian Dyne (Enjoy Gallery, Wellington, also a DJ / musician, just released an album)
- Sam Hartnett (winner of the Metro Young Photographers Award 2006)
- Anya Henis (Painting category winner Mt Eden Young Artist Awards, 2004; included in Compelled: Annual New Artists Show 05, curated for Artspace by Rhana Devenport)
- Jill Kennedy (her short film ‘Neuroeconomy’ exhibited at several international film festivals including: Worldwide Short Film Festival; Toronto Film Festival; Portland Film Festival; as well as the New Zealand Film Festival)
- Dave King (artist & musician, plays in the band Golden Axe)
- Seung Yul Oh (Waikato National Art Award Winner; Goldwater Art Award Winner; exhibited at Artspace, Dunedin Public Art Gallery, City Gallery Wellington, Auckland Art Gallery)

In the project space, U.S. artist, Julia Hechtman will be showing, Before the Fall, in conjunction with the theme of Forestaurant. The video work depicts the artist in front of natural disaster footage and moments of splendor. Evoking emotional gestures and referencing the lone figure submerged in a transcendental landscape, the piece has been described as the “witch’s weather channel.”

Julia Hechtman’s work has been shown extensively in the U.S. and internationally. She is also the co-founder of Proof Gallery located in Boston, which is dedicated to singular projects that focus on experimentation and innovation. Hechtman received her MFA from University of Illinois at Chicago in 2001, and her BFA from Syracuse University, NY in 1991.

ends

© Scoop Media