SCAPE now has pop-up home
Warren Feeney talks to the owners of a new Christchurch gallery designed to support public art.
‘It is a unique location as the first contemporary art gallery in Merivale,’’ says SCAPE Public Art director Deborah McCormick about Studio 125 Gallery, recently opened to support public art and the arts in Christchurch.
The new gallery will feature the work of artists who have an association with SCAPE and its annual arts event of national and international contemporary public art. She says that the gallery represents a new philanthropic model for cultivating and supporting the arts in Christchurch.
‘‘It is about evolving your fundraising model. SCAPE has established a partnership with two patrons, Heather and Neville Brown, who have supported SCAPE for the past four years, including Neil Dawson’s Fanfare for Chaney’s Corner at the gateway to the city.
‘‘The gallery has been in the planning for the past six months. SCAPE’s public programme has always needed seed funding from central and local government, but we are always looking for additional opportunities to create new revenue. I celebrate the patronage of the private sector’s support.
‘‘They can see that the arts have played an important role in the rebuild of Christchurch and with Studio 125 Gallery, Heather and Neville own the building and are providing it for SCAPE to use as a pop-up gallery.
‘‘We are fostering relationships with the private sector and positioning SCAPE’s artworks as a potential investment. People are coming to us and wanting to support us. Dame Adrienne Stewart has played a large role in establishing the model for this, but SCAPE also has to build on this.’’
For Heather Brown, the commitment to the visual arts began with plans to build a new home more than 13 years ago. ‘‘It was two years in the design process and I became really involved with this. That pushed the start button. I purchased canvases and paint. I started in the garage, moved the cars out, turned up the music and painted. Something happened I was not expecting. It was like I had found a voice for something inside of me that I could not have found elsewhere.
‘‘I spent valuable time with renowned New Zealand artist Max Gimblett in his New York studio, where he encouraged me to go big and go strong, noting my painting practice as being very mature.’’
She also says that an invitation from a friend to support Neil Dawson’s Fanfare public sculpture represented a further turning point. ‘‘Once I got some insight into that project and the sculpture I got really excited – what SCAPE was doing and how magnificent it was, this integration of public art into the city.’’
The new gallery is an additional step in this support and the outcome of a decision to convert her former studio into a gallery. ‘‘I wanted a location and a building that would be used for a studio and for many years I had looked at 125 Aikmans Rd and then the opportunity arose to purchase. It began as my studio. I was working here painting and I had art to view. I never advertised it. I just left the door open.’’
Studio 125 Gallery also had an earlier life as a home and the rooms and divisions between them have been deliberately retained. ‘‘The purpose was to have a space to work in, and now to use it to draw attention to artists in the city,’’ says Heather Brown. ‘‘It is a place where people can come to and feel as though they are at home – a place of welcome and comfort, breaking down barriers for the public with the arts.’’
This ambition to grow new audiences for contemporary art also includes a wider programme, with invited artists giving demonstrations about their practice on designated Thursday evenings. There will also be children’s art making activities on Wednesdays after school.
McCormick maintains that the gallery will play an important role in supporting SCAPE and the arts in Christchurch. ‘‘The gallery is holding an annual opening, auction and pop-up exhibition for SCAPE and Heather is hosting it. This is very much a fundraising event, but there are a lot of people like Heather and Neville, seeing the arts as an opportunity, and the artist’s work in the gallery is attractive for people to support the arts and build their own art collection.
‘‘Many of the works in the gallery’s opening exhibition will be new and there will be editions of works by artists that relate to their larger SCAPE public artworks. We commissioned Phil Price for Nucleus, his kinetic sculpture for SCAPE in 2006 in High St and since then the interest in his work has become international.’’
Heather Brown’s paintings will also feature in the opening exhibition, alongside 2016 Walters Prize finalist Nathan Pohio, People’s Choice Award for the Headland Sculpture on the Gulf Virginia King (who has a smaller edition of her award work, Phantom Vessel (titled Branching Vessel Marquette on exhibition), painter Rachael Dewhirst, Christchurch painter, printmaker, installation artist and ceramicist Janna van Hasselt and sculptor Gill Gatfield.
McCormick says that SCAPE is looking for new ways to create new audiences and unique ways to fundraise.
‘‘Studio 125 Gallery is a beautiful asset and property and it can only be good for the arts proper across Christchurch.’’
‘‘We have this opportunity in front of us to say Christchurch is an arts city – we are well on our way in world terms,’’ adds Heather Brown. ‘‘That totally excites me. It is that bigger picture of where the arts can take Christchurch.’ ❚ Studio 125 Gallery’s opening exhibition runs until April 13. Opening hours are Thursdays 3pm to 5pm and Fridays and Saturdays 10am to 4pm.