Ridiculous Sublime

Posted 1:40pm Sunday 31st July 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

"The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again." -Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason:  Part II. c1795   I Read more...

Doris Lusk

Posted 1:09pm Sunday 24th July 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

Nude sculpture, a freaky fish plate, gorgeous florals and sweeping watercolours compile one of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s latest exhibitions. This marks the one-hundrenth birthday of Doris Lusk, one of the most prominent New Zealand artists of the twentieth century. In memory of her, the Read more...

Michael Parekowhai

Posted 1:23pm Sunday 17th July 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

Several years ago, whilst working at Te Papa Tongarewa I was lucky enough to view Michael Parekowhai’s On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer, a magnificent sculpture installation coinciding with the 54th Venice Biennale exhibition. The installation included an enormous and intimidating Read more...

Discordia, Hair, & Bondage

Posted 12:48pm Sunday 10th July 2016 by Lucy Hunter

Spartan, fit-for-purpose separates, uncanny fetishism, and bondage elements make for a bold first step into the industry for this emerging designer. Julia Palm graduated in the top of her class at Otago Polytechnic School of Fashion. Julia is heading to New Zealand Fashion Week in August to take Read more...

Uniform

Posted 12:47pm Sunday 29th May 2016 by Jess Taylor

Rocking up fashionably late, as always, to the Blue Oyster Art Project Space on Dowling Street, I am pleased to see the front door flung open invitingly, with small groups of people milling around in the front room. I enter the space where this month’s exhibition opening is unfolding, eager to Read more...

Nine Photographs - Laurence Aberhart

Posted 12:50pm Sunday 29th May 2016 by Robyn Maree Pickens

New Zealand soils are notoriously low in selenium, a mineral that photographer Laurence Aberhart uses (with gold) as a toner when developing his photographs, to create warmth in the shadows. Viewing his photographs in the flesh, one has a sense that these flickers of captured light have been made by Read more...

The Obliteration Room — Yayoi Kusama

Posted 1:10pm Sunday 22nd May 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

Fresh and sparkling at the DPAG this week is Yayoi Kusama’s The Obliteration Room, or polka dot madness, as I prefer to think of it. This exhibition takes the form of a domestic interior - a house complete with living room, study, kitchen, and Kmart-worthy chic décor. The only Read more...

Light Switch and Conduit: The Jim Barr & Mary Barr Collection

Posted 1:32pm Sunday 8th May 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

Some art exhibitions simply make sense. The flow from one artwork to another is smooth, logical, creating a gradual sense of understanding and enlightenment in the viewer. They make you go “Oh cool, yeah, nice, wow, I get that.”  Light Switch and Conduit is not one of those Read more...

A deep and tumbling kind of laughter - John Ward Knox

Posted 12:52pm Sunday 1st May 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

It would be easy to mistake the current exhibition at the Hocken Gallery for an empty space, so diminutive is the scale of John Ward Knox’s paintings. Yet what a deep and tumbling kind of laughter lacks in size, it makes up for in the intimacy, skill, and sheer beauty of the Read more...

Fashion Rules OK

Posted 1:13pm Sunday 24th April 2016 by Monique Hodgkinson

There comes a point in each semester when the uni’s endless sea of stripes, denim, grey, black and white becomes a bit too monotonous to bear. At this point, vintage fashion never fails to provide a fresh and energising splash of colour. Fashion Rules OK, the new exhibition at the University Read more...