When I Grow Up: Exhibition Preview Tuesday 4 December

When I Grow Up: Exhibition Preview Tuesday 4 December

Listing information:
When I Grow Up: Antonia Wood, Phoebe Lysbeth Kay Mackenzie, and Nyree McInally curated by Briar Holt
Blue Oyster Art Project Space, 24b Moray Place, Dunedin.
Exhibition Preview: Tuesday 4 December 5:30pm
Exhibition Runs: Wednesday 5 December – Saturday 22 December 2012

The three artists contributing to When I Grow Up are all 2011 graduates from the Dunedin School of Art, and curator Briar Holt has recently graduated with a degree in Art History from the University of Otago. For all involved, this exhibition was in a sense a rite of passage, a way of ‘growing up’ by working outside of the boundaries of an educational institution and testing ideas and practices developed while studying. The exhibition is an opportunity for these recent graduates to showcase their abilities in a professional gallery setting.

Holt began with a loose curatorial framework and spent the year working with the three artists towards the creation of new work that encouraged the continued development of their individual practices. The result is an exhibition which, while not strictly feminist in nature, provides a starting point for looking at how the ideas and aims of female artists may have changed in recent decades. Common to the three artists is an interest in aspects of vulnerability and protection, particularly the conflict between safety, security and the need to gain independence - in all its guises - in a world predisposed to threaten and subjugate certain groups.

Mackenzie’s video installations can be read as surrealist and anarchic responses to constructed feminine and domestic ideals, while Wood’s textile-based sculptures explore ideas of nurturing and comfort through a subverted nursery school aesthetic. Similarly, McInally’s ceramic installation interrogates the idea that childhood experiences shape adult lives, and that one can never fully overcome issues that stem from such experiences.

Antonia Wood graduated in 2011 from the Dunedin School of Art with a BVA majoring in sculpture.

Nyree McInally graduated in 2011 from the Dunedin School of Art with a BVA majoring in sculpture.

Phoebe Lysbeth Kay Mackenzie graduated in 2011 from the Dunedin School of Art with a BVA majoring in photography.

Briar Holt graduated in 2012 from the University of Otago with an Honours in Art History and Theory.

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Click for big version.
Still image from Walk, Phoebe Lysbeth Kay Mackenzie, looped digital video and glass, 2012.

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Blue Oyster Art Project Space | www.blueoyster.org.nz |
Basement, 24b Moray Place | PO Box 5903, Dunedin 9058
Gallery hours: Tuesday–Friday 11am–5pm, Saturday 12pm–3pm
The Blue Oyster is supported by Creative New Zealand | Toi Aotearoa and Dunedin City Council | Kaunihera-a-rohe o Otepoti

ENDS

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