Smoky Repose

Posted 5:01pm Sunday 30th September 2012

A young woman poses in profile against an indistinct backdrop, a cigarette propped just so in her mouth as she gazes coolly into the unknown distance. Another girl’s hair is drawn tightly back as she clenches her face into an expression of what could be pain or pleasure. The cigarette makes Read more...

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

Posted 4:25pm Sunday 23rd September 2012

I don’t know about you, but there’s something about tentacles that freak me out. Sea creatures in general are scary: sharks, jellyfish (Finding Nemo has a lot to answer for), flesh-eating piranhas, and so on – the whole lot are evil harbingers of doom as far as I’m concerned. But while Deep Sea Read more...

White Noise

Posted 4:03pm Sunday 9th September 2012

Do you guys know about the iTunes visualiser? If you do, nod vigorously – we are on the same page. For those who don’t, I am about to change your life. Press Ctrl+T the next time you’re playing a song in iTunes, and VOILA! Colours, sunbursts, fireworks, rainbows galore! The first time I was Read more...

Tik Tok

Posted 5:17pm Sunday 2nd September 2012

The first thing I heard upon entering this exhibition was “This is freaky!” (uttered by a young girl of about five or so, who was there with her mother). The second thing, which immediately followed the first, was “What the fuck is this?” (which earned the teenage speaker a dirty glare from the Read more...

EX, WAI & ZEE

Posted 4:26pm Sunday 19th August 2012

www.bit.ly/IOJCZj It was pretty much inevitable that this exhibition would interest me, considering that it deals with two of my favourite topics: language (hello, English major) and art (hello, editor of what section again?). On a very basic level, it might appear that words and images are Read more...

Bits and Bobs

Posted 5:14pm Sunday 12th August 2012

Tetris is what my mind immediately conjured up when I first saw Suel Novell’s art installation Zoom. Obviously it was a foolish and uniformed first instinct, but it’s not hard to see why I immediately leaped to that conclusion. Novell’s installation consists of a series of small, interlocked Read more...

The Devil in Me

Posted 5:14pm Sunday 12th August 2012

The irony of walking into Unipol for the first time ever for the sole purpose of reviewing an art installation was not lost on me. Besides being interestingly unusual, however, the setting of Siobhan Wootten’s The Tao of Avery really did make the artwork that much more impressive. Walk into Unipol Read more...

A Study in Vivacity

Posted 4:49pm Sunday 5th August 2012

Sensory overload is the first thing that comes to mind when you first encounter Micci Cohan’s stunning collage artworks. There’s so much going on in each piece that looking at them can be a jarring and overwhelming experience. Sizzling colours practically pop off the page, energetic squiggles and Read more...

Fun-Sized

Posted 2:15pm Sunday 29th July 2012

It’s probably become obvious to those who regularly read Critic’s art section that the majority of exhibitions I write about are “official” ones. What I mean by this is that these exhibitions, curated by various art galleries around the city, feature New Zealand artists who are well established Read more...

Ping vs. Pong

Posted 5:14pm Sunday 15th July 2012

Yes, this is a review of an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. No, I have not recently (or ever) been to New York (don’t remind me, I’ll just get depressed). But while procrastinating writing my dissertation this week, I discovered the wonderful realm of online exhibitions. As Read more...