A medical journey through works of art
Anneke Moore’s new exhibition explores her experience as a parent having to watch her child go on a medical journey.
Moore, whose daughter Hannah was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at 16-months-old, said this exhibition was a lot different to her previous works.
‘‘It’s been pretty full on.’’ Hannah is now 18 and Moore said the exhibition focuses mainly on the last five years of her daughter’s journey. One of the pieces, titled Mixed Messages, took her four years to complete.
‘‘Messages go in and messages come out but they kind of get stuck in there so it’s all about how you process that stuff.’’
The exhibition features Moore’s artwork upon a selection of light boxes made from old and new x-ray boxes. Funnily enough, Moore’s husband is a radiographer so is more than familiar with them.
Each light box is interactive with switches to turn the lights on and off and see them differently.
‘‘Our daughter has had so many X-rays and we were looking at them all the time, and then everything has gone digital so they were getting rid of the light boxes so it was the perfect base for what I want to do.
‘‘The hands represent that words aren’t enough sometimes to express how we feel but at the same time it’s
‘‘Our daughter has had so many X-rays and we were looking at them all the time.’’ Artist Anneke Moore
also talking about difference and difference being really gorgeous.
‘‘The heart represents all the emotion behind things.’’
Hannah isn’t deaf but Moore said using sign language was a powerful way of expressing that words aren’t enough.
Four of the light boxes feature words in sign language – faith, fragile, sound, and I love you.
‘‘Fragile represents our family and how we’ve all supported each other and our other kids as well and how awesome they’ve been amongst it,’’ the mother of three said.
Moore had showed the exhibition to her daughter who was following her mother in a career of creativity.
‘‘I think she thinks it’s pretty cool, she’s quite in to art and she’s really in to photography, that’s what she does.’’
The exhibition is titled MERAKI, which is the soul, creativity, or love put into something; the essence of yourself that is put into your work.
MERAKI is on display at KINA NZ Design + Artspace 101 Devon Street West, New Plymouth until July 31.