Artists Stay Over in the Hirschfeld Gallery

Amy Howden-Chapman, photo stills from Chasing Losses, 2010. Image courtesy of the artist.

Artists Stay Over in the Hirschfeld Gallery
The Hirschfeld Gallery announces new exhibition Staying Over: artists from three cities

Wellington galleries have been quick to host artists whose work and lives have been disrupted by the Christchurch earthquake and its aftermath. The Hirschfeld Gallery’s new exhibition Staying Over: artists from three cities builds on this connection between the two cities.

Staying Over showcases the work of two Christchurch artists, Adam Willetts and Maria Walls, which is exhibited alongside Annette O’Sullivan and James Francis from Wellington and Amy Howden-Chapman, currently based in Los Angeles.

Each artist works in a different medium—ceramics, sculpture, performance, typography, moving image, graphic design and photography are all included in the show. These many disciplines collectively form an exhibition which looks at new ways to define the spaces where we live, work and connect with others.

Cantabrian Maria Walls’ work in Staying Over includes wall-mounted photographic prints as well as inserts placed within the exhibition’s accompanying brochures. Some of these are sourced from messages posted on the internet from Wellingtonians keen to offer hospitality and accommodation to victims of the earthquake in Christchurch, others depict the spray-painted messages left on Christchurch buildings from search and rescue teams from all over the world. Walls’ work brings to attention connections between cities in the wake of disaster, and ‘hosts’ images relating to the event in new ways.

Other works in the show also look at different ways to think about what a place is, beyond simply a geographical location.

Traditionally committed to the display of the Wellington-based artists, architects, designers and other less easily categorised creative disciplines, the Hirschfeld Gallery is delighted to expand its focus with Staying Over: artists from three cities to accommodate the work of artists from afar as well as closer to home.

ENDS

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