A group exhibition including selected works by SAM MITCHELL, MARTIN POPPELWELL and ROBIN NEATE.
Selected works by ROBIN NEATE new and recent, are presented in this exhibition. Neate’s works reveal a concern for the discarded and outmoded. Painting, he suggests, is not a linear practice but one filled with loops and double-backs, whose history—along with the wider register of visual culture—is instantly available as source material for a contemporary artist.
SAM MITCHELL presents new work that continues her interest in feminism with creative women at the fore – American poet and playwright Edna St Vincent Millay; New Zealand writers Ngaio Marsh and Janet Frame; and the fictitious character of Laura Ingells Wilder from Little House on the Prairie. Alongside these, are earlier works from 2016 – large scale portraits from imagined science fiction culture – their faces tattooed with pop culture references past and present, on an intergalactic rainbow sky.
MARTIN POPPELWELL’s large multi-faceted "An Astute Idiot" takes centre stage in our window space. Painted in 2016, this work melds Poppelwell’s trademark grid structure with figurative elements and text often sourced from his surroundings and his own past archive – shards of broken pottery sit alongside landscape forms and signage – painted at various angles providing multiple viewing points. A selection of recent pottery will also be included in the exhibition.
