In Our Community / David Rickard’s first solo exhibition in Ashburton is well worth a look
Contemporary artist David Rickard returns home for a solo exhibition in Ashburton this summer. It will be one of the few exhibitions his family will have seen of his work, since he left New Zealand in his early twenties.
David was born in Ashburton and attended Ashburton College before studying architecture at
Auckland School of Architecture, and later Fine Arts in Milan and London. Now based in London, his original studies in architecture have had a lasting impact on his art practice, embedding questions of material and spatial perception deep into his work.
Echoes from the Sound Barrier will bring together new works made during 2018 and 2019, including a number of new pieces made in New Zealand specifically for this exhibition. The name references a latitudinal line 42.27 degrees south, which cuts across the South Island just below Kaikōura to Greymouth. At this latitude the surface of the earth is revolving at precisely 1,235 km/h, which is equal to the speed of sound.
All of the works consider movements and relationships that are typically imperceptible – from geographic relationships that span antipodes, to the constant revolution of the earth, the unrelenting drag of gravity and the weight of air. ‘I’m really interested to see what people make of it,’ David says.
In one work, A Roomful of Air, David will explore the weight of air in the galler y with concrete construction blocks. Based on the Ashburton Art Gallery’s room dimensions and average room temperature, he estimates this to be 788 kg of air. A calculation which he plans to fully determine during installation in late-November.
While in another, X, created in
Mozambique, Western Australia, French Polynesia and Brazil, David uses four global co-ordinates that are located at exactly the same latitude and separated by 90 degrees in longitude, like the ‘four corners’ of the earth. He explains that ‘through collaboration with people in each country local sticks were placed in the ground like simple markers, forming the points of a very large X. The resulting work is both an installation, and also the documentary photographs which echo historic diagrams by the likes of Cosmas Indicopleustes who denied the world was a sphere.’
David uses research and experimentation to attempt to understand how we arrived at our current perception of the physical world and how far our perception is from what we call reality. ‘There’s often a big difference between what we think we see and what actually exists,’ he explains. ‘These slippages make openings for other conversations about relationships to our surroundings and sense of place.’ His works range from sculpture to performance, film and photography. The exhibition runs from 28 November 2019 – 20 January 2020. Visit ashburtonartgallery.org.nz for more.