Pot Ritual effusion/beauty and sadness Resistance is beautiful, despair is counter revolutionary. The present struggle between the lovers of trees and the masters of concrete reiterates the political and scientific exclusion of collective voice from the political realm. The other, as its own authority and obscured by specialised logic, becomes both managed and incomprehensible. Women and children venture into the night and uplift surveyor’s pegs. The surveyor is a key to the war machine, the women and children to the Whenua. The mark can be erased but its idea remains at the disposal of the plough. To critique Colonial Imperialism as an ideology feeds back into its own PR. So let’s take those words and drop them in an astringent bath. Sand in the engine does not erase the car or thwart cities as they become finely latticed containers for remnant life spaces. The artificial embraces nature; if we can build sky ramps why not vases for endangered localities? A nightmarish ornamental gesture? we only lose what we feel is lost.  We navigate and negotiate …

Too young to be out with the men fishing in the open waters exposed to the elements. They say you begged them to go. Holding on for as long as you could before being swept away. No lifejacket, a boy in a mans world. A daily ritual, your mother waited for you where the ocean kisses the shoreline. Denial is the first process of grief. Steal Away. Stolen. Nina Oberg Humphries’ work hits me hard. Paralysed by memory. Haunted by the presence of death. The Drowned World. Past tense. We are offered no false sense of hope. Victims of the future. They say a lot can be learnt from hindsight. A virtual exhibition featuring the work of seven New Zealand based artists of Pacific heritage, The Drowned World explores the intimate connection between human life and water. Unable to escape the reality of rising sea levels and the catastrophic impact climate change is beginning to have on our region, perhaps unsurprisingly, the show is framed by a sense of loss, a contemplation of grief and a …

Creamy Todd Yvonne’s Todd’s survey exhibition at City Gallery Wellington Creamy Psychology is both seductive and creepy; two words which also describe Todd’s practice at large. I’ve always liked it but have never been sure why. Off-kilter scenes featuring women on the verge of tears or in tears or post tears, surreal compositions of plumbing pipes, a pregnant lady in space, dolled up young pageant girls, women stoically returning your voyeur’s gaze, dressed in garb from the 70s and 80s; all uncanny and uncomfortable. This is the first time City Gallery has given as much space to one artist and Todd has made sure there is a lot to see. Some rooms worked better than others. At times it felt as though I was looking at “fillers”; as in those works (like filler songs on an album) were a bit samey or seemingly weak in comparison to the majority of the exhibition. Perhaps a smaller number of photographs in those areas, with more breathing space, would have been more effective. I’m not usually a fan …