CREATIVE GLANCES
A look back at the year in arts
Ayear in the Manawatu¯ arts community is one that couldn’t be transferred to any other part of the country. There is something about the grassroots way in which we operate that makes our province kind of special.
The door is not only open here, it has a welcome sign on it.
I walked into many art studios during 2017. Some are perfect in their cluttered chaos, while others are contemplative, revered spaces of light and creative thought.
Some are sheds, others are purposebuilt gems and others still are just one end of the kitchen table. The common thread? An openness to share and a refreshing void of pretension. You won’t that find here.
What I found this year is that the same people keep on keeping on, but they aren’t doing the same thing.
Pania Molloy found wood and ditched canvas, Cheleigh-anne Dunkerton has become fearless in her use of colour, Nicola Gregory found some light and Gembol Farrell reached for extremes with her massive murals and her intricate tattoos.
I saw Morgan Linforth come into her own and have watched her sometimes obsessive processes free her up into a beautifully fluid and intuitive style.
Keli Jarvis is another, prolific in her output and creative in questioning the idea of how an exhibition should be. She pushed past and walked straight out the door, exhibiting in outdoor spaces with leaves falling and kids playing, a big sky and the Ruahine Range as her backdrop, rather than enclosed white walls.
Naga Tsutsumi proved to be a summit again. He holds one exhibition a year at Zimmerman Gallery and stepping annually into his tiny studio, where his daughter’s hand prints cobweb the door, I never know what I am going to see.
This year what was hung in his space made me stand quietly for a good long while. I was looking at nostalgia, a dream place that had an elbow of deja vu. Tsutsumi doesn’t hang too many words on his works and for a moment, I was lost for them too.
I have met new people. Radha Sahar and her works hanging in Foxton were a breath of fresh air. She explained what happens behind the scenes of her optical illusion pieces and I got a glimpse of the magical side of what she does when she sang to me in the car.
Jacob Wilson is a young artist going by the name of Cat Scabs who has silently popped up in unexpected places this year. He is intriguing in his quiet way because of the loud things his work conveys. His voice is in his art and I think people should have a listen.
Snails: Artist Run Space moved its shell a few doors down, Taylor Jensen Fine Arts gave room for a constant stream of Manawatu¯ creatives and our fringe groups such as NOA, Creative Journeys, Wooly Riot and WAI: Women’s Art Initiative brought their own artistic fingerprint.
The first ever Art Trail Manawatu¯ forged ahead this year, and it will hopefully continue an annual tread of feet through the region’s art studios.
In between, and often jumping off the top of the art scene in brightly striped socks, was Shaun Kay. Working and weaving his magic threads from Square Edge to his self-proclaimed ‘‘Mother Ship’’, the Palmerston North City Council, he is never far from the action. And wherever Kay is, it’s usually the place to be.
Something else has also surfaced in 2017 and it is in direct contrast to the usual Palmerston North vibe.
In embracing street art through council and community initiatives, a new conversation over what we think art is and where its place is, has begun. And that - sometimes heated - conversation has exposed some cracks.
Palmerston North’s Place Making initiative has turned blank city walls into canvasses through collaborations with many Manawatu¯ artists.
But an assumption that brightening our city in this way would be accepted as a positive by everyone was proven wrong. It came late in the play, but when a mural gifted to the city by well-known street artist Haser was covered up by Zimmerman Gallery, people got angry.
We were told that it didn’t sit well with Paul Dibble’s pop-up sculpture and so began a thought train on what exactly this meant in our landscape of historic compatibility.
It was the way we ended the year, but the nails on the boards that cover the mural signify the hammering in of a new and more questioning community. It showed divisions in our usually allembracing scene and it has opened up some room for a bit of a head scratch.
As Te Manawa also asks some big questions about the place of art while it stands on the cusp of reinvention and the disestablishment of jobs, it would seem that 2018 might just be the year for a bit of a shake up.
So while the open door policy is an important one in the Manawatu¯ arts community, so should our ability to question and push, argue and change.
After all, art is not just the colour of a region but the soul and fight as well.
Next week Carly Thomas will be looking back at what sort of a year 2017 was for the Manawatu¯ theatre community.
Tsutsumi doesn’t hang too many words on his works and for a moment, I was lost for them too.