Solander has arrived!

Solander: works on paper, Wellington's gallery dedicated to contemporary art on paper, has relocated from Lyall Bay to 218 Willis St in the inner city. This large street level space, in the same building complex as the Mark Hutchins gallery, brings a significant presence for works on paper to the central city for the first time, and helps to build the growing arts precinct as a cultural destination.

Solander's vibrant exhibition programme of contemporary printmaking and drawing kicks off at 6:30pm Friday 23 January with an opening show featuring Marian Maguire, Kelvin Mann and Stuart Duffin. Gallery directors Kyla Cresswell, Paulette Robinson and Vincent Drane are pleased to be joined by Marian Maguire for the occasion.

Marian Maguire is a highly regarded artist and a master lithographic printmaker, a career she has developed through editioning work at her studio, Papergraphica in Christchurch. Maguire has created a number of finely drawn graphite on paper botanical studies especially for the exhibition.

Stuart Duffin is one of the world's leading mezzotint artists (mezzotint is a technique where the artist marks thousands of tiny lines of dots into a metal plate by hand and then polishes them back to form an image, producing rich, atmospheric works). Duffin's Tabula Rasa series focuses on Jerusalem and the cross-cultural spirituality of the holy city. Presented alongside these mezzotints are the artist's recent etchings exploring the origins of mapmaking.

Kelvin Mann, originally from Dunedin, now works as a professional printmaker in Dublin and has exhibited widely in NZ and internationally. This body of work evokes childhood model construction and takes delight in the way things fit together. While injecting humour through his choice of subject and visual puns, the work exhibits a highly resolved draftsmanship.

The gallery holds portfolios of works by Alexis Neal, Alex Milsom, Annie Smits Sandano, Basia Smolnicki, Catherine Macdonald, Cerisse Palalagi, Chris Adams, Damon Kowarsky, Deborah Barton, Emma McCleary, Fleur Williams, Inge Doesburg, Jenna Packer, John Callaghan, Joseph Michael, Karen Stevens, Kelvin Mann, Kim Lowe, Kyla Cresswell, Manu Berry, Manuel Lau, Maree Horner, Margaret Silverwood, Marian Maguire, Mark Graver, Marty Vreede, Nan Mulder, Natalie Couch, Rona Green, Ruth Green Cole, Sam Broad, Sheyne Tuffery, Stuart Duffin and Vanessa Edwards. Solander will also continue to consistently support emerging artists.

Background

Director Kyla Cresswell founded Solander: works on paper in 2006 in Lyall Bay, and is joined by Paulette Robinson and Vincent Drane as directors of the new gallery in Willis St. Vincent is a bookbinder who has a Fine Art degree in Printmaking from the Victorian College of the Arts, and Paulette has many years of experience in small business ventures, as well as exposure to gallery operations through former Wellington family run works on paper gallery, Grodentz. Paulette and Vincent have recently re-located to New Zealand from Melbourne. They bring a range of skills to the gallery to be coupled with Kyla's prior gallery operation and workshop experience. A practicing artist and Bachelor of Fine Art graduate (majoring in Printmaking) Kyla is delighted to see the potential of the gallery expand and believes it is a very positive step in supporting art in New Zealand - in particular the highly skill based practice of handmade contemporary printmaking such as etching, mezzotint and woodcut.

ENDS

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