Culture

DPAG
Until 26 September

The Seraphine Pick exhibition at the DPAG requires the viewer to become a detective scouring through the large-scale survey of works to find threads of cohesive meaning or narrative. 
Seraphine Pick is one of New Zealand’s most revered painters. Pick’s work is characterised not only by her ability to catapult the viewer into other worlds, but also the interactive quality of her work. This encourages the viewer to formulate their own narrative out of what they experience. The exhibition unveils consistent connections in Pick’s artistic practise anchored by an interest in memory, identity, sexuality, and the imaginative realm. 
The exhibition space is categorised around these themes, highlighted by overlaps and points of correlation, as well as Pick's progression as an artist. To enter this exhibition is to encounter a fragmented headspace as each work evokes a strong sense of awe, confusion, and sometimes the uneasiness of familiarity. 
One might liken some of Pick’s work to a David Lynch film. Pick’s figures are uncomfortable to look at and rarely does a figure’s face appear without seeming ghost-like or distorted, sometimes purposely barricaded by brush strokes or an array of objects. This is chiefly apparent in both Wandering Rose (2008) and her portraits in Looking like someone else. There is a particular emphasis on the unconscious and the otherworldliness of the everyday, especially the recurring use of objects that both represent and generate memories. This focus alludes to a sense of emotional distress, reiterated by the notion of objects symbolising the physical remains of broken relationships. This is evident in works featured in both Domestic warfare and Preserves and Possessions.
Observing, one can feel trapped inside Pick’s dreams, as her works have a surrealist eminence and an undercurrent of private thoughts and recollections. In both Love School (1999) and Untitled (1998) the eye’s focus shifts relentlessly across detailed fantasy worlds. Pick’s images consume the viewer in a visual frenzy into the unsettling and illogical nature of the subconscious, at times appearing perilous, erotic, and peculiar. The viewer becomes aware of the subversive nature of identity, the otherworldliness of the everyday, and the indistinctiveness of memories.