Scoop

Introducing Virginia Leonard

PAULNACHE is thrilled to now represent Virginia Leonard, a NZ-born and based artist who works with clay in a response to the broken parts of her body.

After graduating with a Master of Fine Arts from Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design in 2001, Virginia was the winner of the Molly Morpeth Canady Art Award, Whakatane (2012) and winner of the Walker and Hall Waiheke Art Award, Waiheke Art Gallery, Waiheke (2011).

Her recent exhibitions include: Graffiti Lounge, group show at PAULNACHE, Gisborne (2016); The Effects of Crack, Objectspace, Auckland (2014) and Foursome, The Vivian, Matakana (2014). Virginia won the Merit Award at the Portage Ceramic Awards, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Auckland (2015); a consistent Finalist in the Wallace Art Awards and was a Finalist in the National Contemporary Art Award, Waikato Museum.

Graffiti Lounge

Graffiti turns private into public: it places an individual’s expression onto a privately-owned space to display to the community their contest of space. Graffiti is a reaction against the visual occupation of public space by companies’ and individual’s use of advertising billboards and Brutalist architecture; graffiti is a direct action in the contest of ownership of public space. 

With each exhibition, the white walls of a gallery are ‘tagged’ by a succession of artists’ works. However, rather than a contest of space between artist and gallery, it is a collaboration to contest the visual space of our culture. Gallery and artists work together to present and represent their ideal supremacy over the visual pollution that invades our everyday. Like graffiti, the exhibition is transient and fluid, with each one applied over the last, jostling for space and asserting ownership: graffiti and exhibitions grow in palimpsest.

Though serious in its challenge, the curation of this exhibition lounges; Gisborne in the height of summer is ground-zero for sauntering, and Graffiti Lounge reclines with a relaxed, confident attitude. It is not a clean, formal show, as it instigates a variety of aesthetics that reflect the chaotic nature of graffiti. Evan Woodruffe and Kimberley Annan have approached it with the method of graffiti crews, producing works separately and collaboratively, and inviting artists to join them in a show that contests the ownership of our visual space. Welcome to the Graffiti Lounge.

GRAFFITI LOUNGE ARTISTS:
Evan Woodruffe
Kim Annan
George Hajian
Sue Dickson
Virginia Leonard
Richard Darbyshire
Teresa Lane
Eloise Cato
Glen Hayward

CREDITS:
Film: Damon Meade
Photography by Tom Teutenberg @2TEN
Music: Melon Twister
PAULNACHE Productions © 2015

James R Ford's inaugural solo with Gisborne dealer PAULNACHE

James R Ford in conjunction with PAULNACHE, Gisborne, NZ presents... 

lol·ly·gag

  • intransitive verb \ˈlä-lē-ˌgag\
  • : to spend time doing things that are not useful or serious : to fool around and waste time

Forever playfully exploring the intimate relationships between physical media and everyday life: James R Ford’s investigations into, and reflections on, existential nature and the use of conventional materials and modes of presentation reveal countless nuanced contradictions as well as a fascination with process and the filling in of time. While mostly a creator of laboured drawings, well considered objects and videos, Ford also provides us with scenarios that have us pondering over the mundane and/or acting out the absurd as he invites us to look deeper into his works and what is taking place around us.

There are several strands to the concept behind these works, but all question the nature of the artwork and our perception therein. The exhibition title, Lollygag, was chosen as the works on show may appear to be foolish or useless on first glance. The idea here is to look at how we spend our time, what is considered a waste of time, and how thought alone can bring worth to something seemingly “worth nothing”.  Nothing as in empty, or the act of doing nothing (being idle, waiting, worrying), or the relative importance of an gesture or the worth of the artwork itself (nothing to offer, waste of time, pointless).

Bertrand Russell, from the essay  “In Praise of Idleness”, says “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” This can be applied to the time spent producing the artworks, or the time used by the viewer in looking and contemplating them. Where do “wastes of time” sit in your hierarchy of needs? Maybe we all need some things we don’t need for the subsequent virtue or pleasure they can bestow. The exhibition will consist of a new body of work including film, drawing and object assemblage. With Hat Stand (Waiting for Godot) Ford invites viewers to try on and swap the hats on display, assuming other identities or personas, especially if you find yourself waiting for something. 

  • Opening: Friday, 4th of July, 6:00PM at PAULNACHE Upstairs 89 Grey St Gisborne,  NZ
  • Exhibition: 4th-26th July 2014

James R Ford (b. 1980, UK) studied at Goldsmiths College in London and currently lives and works in Wellington. He has exhibited widely throughout New Zealand and overseas and in 2013 was winner of the inaugural Tui McLauchlan Emerging Artist's Award from the New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts. In 2014 Ford published a book of selected works, with accompanying texts, interviews and essays from 2008-2013, entitled Fail Better.