Tuesday 15 October, 7.00–9.00pm
The Wallace Arts Trust’s 10 x ten 2019 is a special evening to celebrate the 28th Wallace Art Awards 2019. Join ten of the Award winners and finalists for social art get together with ten x 10-minute lively discussions on what it is like to participate in New Zealand’s longest surviving, richest and largest annual Art Awards. Join well known successful artists Cathy Carter, Julian McKinnon, Oliver Cain, Karen Rubado, Alex Plumb, Peata Larkin, Jack Trolove, Grace Wright, Katie Blundell, and Matthew Wood from behind the scenes for an evening of informative fun. This interactive event will involve moving throughout the gallery to view the works of the 2019 Wallace Art Award finalists and to learn more about the inspiration behind the art works. Insights into the judging process will be shared and a fresh perspective on how the Awards contribute to the success of New Zealand’s contemporary artists.
more about the artists…
Katie Blundell, multimedia artist: “My artwork is an extension of myself. It contains my thoughts and ideas in relationship to the world around me... All of my work no matter the medium is informed by process. I start with the idea and find the medium to match it. Once I have a basic idea, I work spontaneously letting chance and creativity work together to create the final outcome.”
Photographic artist Cathy Carter’s art is inspired by concerns about climate change and our evolving relationship with bodies of water as we enter the Anthropocene. “My art practice explores bodies of water as physical, cultural, and unique environmental ‘landscapes’ and investigates our complex psychological relationship to water through different perspectives and geographical locations.”
Peata Larkin’s paintings operate at the junction of diverse visual and conceptual traditions. Cultural narratives from her Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, and Ngāti Tuhourangi background are encoded in patterns that allude to digital information, binary opposites, and the gridlines of weaving.
Julian McKinnon’s core discipline is painting, and his current research is engaged in extending this medium by digital means. His work is regularly exhibited in New Zealand and abroad, and his writing about art is frequently published in print and online. He is a regular contributor to Art News NZ.
Alex Plumb works within the lens-based discipline of constructed video. His multi-channel video practice attempts to amplify questions about the psychological interplay between the subject depicted, the site of performance, and how the work unfolds through the slow release promise of imminent rupture. By working in the space between the real and the imagined, the familiar and the unknown, an ambiguous other emerges. Alex won the Wallace Friends of the Civic Short Film Award for Golden Boy, 2019.
Karen Rubado is an Auckland artist who is interested in the aggregation and transformation of found materials through hand-making. Her enthusiasm lies in the connections between intention and action, the real and imagined, and the imperfection that often characterises the handmade. Inspired by techniques of extemporising within a structure, her weaving practice encourages the unexpected and allows for spontaneity as a catalyst for discovery. She sees this as a subtle form of opposition to the authorial powers of tradition and the expectations emanating from both craft and contemporary art conventions.
Jack Trolove’s work currently explores the relationships between embodiment and liminal spaces, such as intergenerational memory and other states of in-between-ness. He approaches figurative work as a kind of remembering. From a distance, Jack’s paintings are intimate and raw portraits, full of emotion, and honestly revealing of the human body. Up close, they are tactile celebrations of paint as a material, abstracted and overflowing with colour and texture.
Grace Wright, painter: “I see painting as a construction process. I start with a colour, and then build upon it, contrasting and harmonising each layer until the final work surfaces. I don’t know what it’s going to look like when I start.”
Matthew Wood – Tying the Bouquets, Engraving the Stringer. Matthew lifts the lid on the behind scenes machinations of the Annual Wallace Art Awards. Reflecting briefly on 10 years of overseeing the entry process and liaising with the judging panels and applicant artists Matthew will tell how the Awards process has changed through the years, how decisions are reached among the panellists and a few of the odder inquiries the Trust has received from Artists wanting to enter and, ultimately, to receive the big bunch of flowers on the first Monday in September.
Tickets: $25 and $20 concession
Includes a cocktail and nibbles. Cash bar for further purchases.
This event is during Artweek Auckland 2019
