West Coast the inspiration for pounamu exhibition

16 November 2011

West Coast the inspiration for pounamu exhibition

For Christchurch man Johnny Percy the West Coast has been both an inspiration and haven this year. Just days before the February quake the 27 year old moved to the Coast to study jade and hard stone carving at Tai Poutini Polytechnic. This week his stunning depiction of a Tui made from Australian black jade will be exhibited at Greymouth’s Left Bank Art Gallery.

“It is such a buzz to have my work exhibited. The Tui is a piece from the heart, it is my favourite bird, it is lovely to watch and has a beautiful sound. To me it is a symbol of the way things should be,” he says.

Johnny was working as a caregiver for mentally and physically disabled people in Christchurch when the September earthquake struck. He moved to the Coast just days before the February quake and says it has been a haven.

“I joined up with the students to help dig silt after the first quake, it was pretty gutting not to be able to help in February and being away from my family. The Coast has been a bit of a refuge, it is very different from Canterbury, I love the native bush and it feels like the last wild frontier, it is very inspiring,”

The Tui is one of the stand-out pieces of this year’s exhibition by students from Tai Poutini Polytechnic’s Jade and Hard Stone carving programme.

The exhibition also features many traditional and contemporary Maori pendants and carvings in pounamu, and art works including a beautifully made belt buckle in Australian jade, a contemporary piece with 24 interlocking whitebait shaped jade carvings and a Chinese garment hook from the Zhou dynasty carved in British Columbian Jade.

“The first year students all learn carving skills by completing set pieces so they will be exhibited as well as a couple of their own designs. The second year is much more about design and there are some marvelous works in the exhibition,” says TPP Jade and Hard Stone Carving tutor Jayne Beaumont.

The students have come from as far away as Australia, Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin. While some pieces will be for sale others will become part of Tai Poutini Polytechnic’s first ever collection of student works.

Marg Saxton from the Left Bank Art Gallery says the public loves the annual exhibition.

“I feel really excited about the exhibition, it is a unique course and over the years the standard of work has got better and better. Some of the pieces are beautiful,” she says.

The exhibition runs from the 18th of November to the 17th of December.

ENDS

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