Serious side

On show: Roberta Thornley’s latest work

Roberta Thornley on her current exhibition and her move from Auckland to Whanganui, which is providing fresh inspiration.

Roberta Thornley’s work has always explored the space between the cinematic and quotidian, and this is beautifully expressed in her current exhibition A Serious Girl, at Whanganui’s Sarjeant Gallery (and Tim Melville Gallery, Auckland, from 5-30 September), which documents a young local gymnast. “Her name is Millie,” says Thornley. “She is a really great kid and I felt such similarity between her and my younger sister who I’ve photographed a lot. Millie is the only subject in the show – which will be challenging for her and for me. But she has a fantastic character and strength.”

Who is the serious girl? I’ve borrowed the title from a painting by a local Whanganui artist, Edith Collier. Edith traveled to London in 1913 to study painting and returned a few years later. The work she produced in Europe shocked the Whanganui community and her father burned many of her paintings. She never painted seriously again.

Tell us about Millie. She finished school last year and is heading to Denmark for gymnastics later this year. I enjoyed the parallel she shares with Collier’s story – she’s probably a similar age to Edith before she left Whanganui for London. Millie is in between these two really great adventures and I am working with her while she sits between them. She lives in this amazing place at Castlecliff Beach: her trampoline hovers over the sand dunes, tied and anchored to the kikuyu lawn so it doesn’t blow away in a storm.

You’ve recently moved to Whanganui. Living here immediately encouraged a playfulness to the way I live. It created a more immediate connection with the communities that I long to work with.

How has the move changed your work? Whanganui is both a romantic and tough town. I don’t feel I need to be in the city to do this work. My nature is nomadic and living here and calling it home gives me the freedom to leave and come back. I can see projects that will stretch their legs a little longer here: it’s easy to build and maintain relationships... it’s all right in front of me.

Roberta Thornley: A Serious Girl Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Until August 20 sarjeant.org.nz

From top to bottom Castlecliff Beach in Whanganui from Millie’s living room is titled ‘Ocean View’; ‘Backyard Dahlias’; the piece of the gymnast at work at her home is ‘Trampoline’; a pose in the living room is called ‘Low Tide’. Inset ‘Millie’, the...