Three artists three views
From tonight, three artists present exhibitions at Space in St Hill St. Timon Maxey presents Views from Roundabout in Gallery 1; Jamie Mackman presents Batman Socks with Coco Pops in Gallery 2; and Lysha Brennan presents Portrait of a Huia bird in the Pop-up Gallery.
Timon’s father, John Maxey, was an English teacher with a love for theatre, hence Timon’s Shakespearean name. His mother taught art at Sacred Heart College in Wanganui.
“She encouraged myself and my sister to get interested in art very early on,” says Timon.
Under pressure to do something
“practical”, Timon did a geography degree then lived in Wellington.
“At university I dabbled in art, printing T-shirts, making jewellery, selling them at markets. In 1991 I did Production Graphics and Design in Auckland and returned to Wellington to become a designer and illustrator.”
In 2001 Timon did a multimedia course, which he “wasn’t crazy about”. “I prefer doing front-end graphics and the look of things rather than the mechanics behind.”
Timon started painting and exhibiting in 1998, moving from painted cartoons to a cubist landscape style.
“Recently I started doing dendritic river patterns, taking a river system and presenting it as art. From the cubist style I’ve developed a simpler form but using texture and drips to more effect.”
He’s also been doing plain air paintings. He now lives in Whanganui.
Jamie Mackman has also moved here from Wellington.
“I’m doing a lot of mixed-media art and the show at Space is ceramics and some line drawings in ink,” she says. “I was predominantly an oil painter and used to do a lot of figurative nudes.”
Jamie’s wet-on-wet style did not sit well with deadlines and led to new styles.
In 2017 she was awarded a Full Tuition Merit Scholarship to the New York Academy of Art Summer Undergraduate Residency Programme.
“There I fell back in love with drawing and found new confidence.
“I’ve always done a lot of mixed media and I got into ceramics just by tinkering,” says Jamie.
She arrived in Whanganui last Christmas.
Printmaker Lysha Brennan was set to exhibit in Artists Open Studios when the event was cancelled.
“Sarah [Williams, Space owner and curator] contacted me because she’d seen my work in the catalogue.”
Sarah offered her an exhibition. “It gives me an opportunity to show some of the work I’d produced for Open Studios, pull together a few things from last year and some new dry point etchings I’ve done. I’ve been printing crazily for this show.”
Lysha is a full-time teacher at Turakina School.
“If I had more time I’d be experimenting with more colour, but this is different. I’ve got my recycled wire pieces - all-wire huia birds - then the black and white prints.”
Lysha has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking at Whanganui Ucol.
Sarah Williams is pleased with what the trio will present at Space.
“I was looking at instant appeal of promo image and their descriptions, looking for studios that may have created an intentional/themed body of work for the event, artists that could exhibit this work at Space instead - Timon, Jamie and Lysha fitted the bill. I’m excited to introduce a few names to Space as this will be their first solo exhibitions with us.
“It’s been wonderful to be back, great to see familiar faces and to see people getting in behind Space after such a long closure; it is a bit bizarre that we have been in our new building for so many months and a good portion of our followers are just starting to see it. Small business certainly needs community support at the moment so I thank Whanganui in advance for their support of these upcoming exhibitions.”
* The exhibitions are on show until July 4. Space hours are WedSat 10am-2pm