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Aotearoa Art Fair: A Selection

John Daly-Peoples

Aotearoa Art Fair April 30 – May 3

At the end of the April, for four days the Aotearoa Art Fair will once again take over the Viaduct Events Centre on Auckland’s waterfront.

For four days, the Viaduct Events Centre will be New Zealand’s most exciting cultural destination with 60 leading galleries presenting work by more than two hundred artists. The works on display will feature painting, sculpture, photography, ceramics, installation art and more. The galleries presenting work are from leading galleries throughout New Zealand as well as major galleries from Australia.

This is the ideal venue for first time collectors as well as those expanding their collections. It is also a chance to hear experts and seasoned collectors talking about art including a session on starting an art collection or art collective featuring Phillida Perry (Kunst Art Group), Christine Fernyhough (Prospect Art Group – New Zealand’s first Art Group), and collector Anna Dickie (Artichoke Art Group).

There are a number of Artists Talks including Yuki Kihara, the New Zealand representative for the 2022 Venice Biennale, talking about the impetus behind her sculpture series ‘Dresstories’, featured at the Aotearoa Art Fair. ‘Dresstories’ references photographs of unknown Sāmoan women taken by the late 19th century NZ colonial photographer Thomas Andrew.

There is also New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based artist Richard Lewer for a first-hand insight into his latest body of work, a compendium of fifty paintings. Offering a snapshot – and social commentary – of our world in 2026, this deeply personal yet collectively resonant body of work, captures the good, the bad and the ugly.

Lissy & Rudi Robinson-Cole will be talking with Nigel Borell talking about their artworks which explore mātauranga Māori and the importance of ancestral knowledge through crocheted woollen sculpture. To date the artists’ largest and most ambitious project has been Wharenui Harikoa (House of Joy), a full-size crocheted meeting house created. They will talk about the boundaries between craft, object art and conventional fine arts at present.

Galleries presenting work by New Zealand and Australian galleries.

Sanderson

Simon Kaan, Marama Series IV

Simon Kaan, Marama Series IV, 2026

Ink and oil on board

1250 (w) x 950 (h) mm

$12,500

For Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 Simon Kaan has created a new series of Marama paintings. Made in his studio in an intense period following a close friend passing away the series explores the interplay of light, darkness, and spiritual symbolism, drawing on the Māori concept of the Marama (the moon) as a guiding force that is comforting and ever-present. Through layered textures and subtle tonal shifts, the works evoke a contemplative atmosphere that reflects both the natural rhythms of life and our inner emotional worlds.

Freeman White, Sonata,

Freeman White, Sonata, 2026

Oil on linen

370 x 270 mm

$3750

For the Aotearoa Art Fair 2026 Freeman White has created a new series of dynamic seascape paintings capturing the shifting moods of the ocean. Using layered brushstrokes and subtle colour transitions the works explore the power and tranquillity of the sea. The artworks emphasize the interplay of light and water, creating scenes that feel both animated and harmonious. Several of the paintings began as en plein air studies, described by White as ‘physical embodiments’ of his memories of place, executed in situ to provide a ‘deeper understanding’ of the subject. Some of these studies are included in this body of work.  

Parker Contemporary

Melissa J Harvey
Pride (from The Guardians series)

Melissa J Harvey
Pride (from The Guardians series), 2025
Scuptie stainless steel and concrete
Dimensions variable
$480 NZD

Developed during a residency at the renowned Morgan Conservatory in the United States, Pride forms part of Melissa J Harvey’s Guardians series, a body of work drawn from recurring dream imagery. In this work, the guardian appears as a watchful presence, reflecting themes of protection, instinct and transformation.

Claudia Husband, Penumbra Drift III, 2025

Claudia Husband
Penumbra Drift III, 2025
Lithograph on Awagami Kitikata and Magnani Pescia
38 x 28cm

$750 NZD

Clouds drift across our skies with a quiet presence, evoking peace, joy, awe and sometimes unease. Though untouchable, they hold immense power: absorbing, reflecting and refracting light, they can obscure the sun and moon or amplify their intensity. In this work, cloud like formations become a meditation on the human psyche, drifting in isolation yet inevitably drawn back toward one another.

Alethea Richter Filtered Light #2

Alethea Richter

Filtered Light II, 2024
Woven multilayer silkscreen on cotton rag, custom framed
76cm x 43.6cm
$6,000 NZD

Filtered Light #2 forms part of a new body of work by Alethea Richter that investigates how the materiality of hand silk screen printing and hand-woven structures can respond to visual uncertainty in the post digital era. Through layered analogue processes, the work reflects on how images are filtered, interrupted and reassembled through material and touch. Filtered Light II was recognised as the winner of the 2025 Burnie Print Emerging Artist Prize.  

Sally Dan-Cuthbert Gallery

Marion Borgelt, Liquid Light: Butterfly

Widely regarded as one of Australia’s most significant and enduring contemporary artists, Marion Borgelt makes her highly anticipated New Zealand debut with new work from three of her most celebrated series: Lunar, Liquid Light, and Strobe. Borgelt’s multidisciplinary practice is distinguished by its sustained investigation into cosmology, optics, time, and the natural world; works that move fluidly across scale, form, and medium, engaging with the fundamental forces that shape our understanding of the universe. Her debut presentation at Aotearoa Art Fair marks an exceptional opportunity to encounter the full breadth and ambition of her evolving vision.

 Life cycles and nature are conceptualised in Borgelt’s intriguing, Liquid Light: Butterfly Series. The life cycle and flutter of butterfly wings is referenced through Borgelt’s expert, delicate use of Belgian linen where exquisite colours create an intriguing and mesmerising textile work.

Lisa Reihana Quills

Lisa Reihana is celebrated internationally as an artist, producer, and cultural interlocutor, she presents new images from Maramatanga and Nomads of the Sea, works that continue her groundbreaking inquiry into contemporary photographic and cinematic languages, and the complex intersections of identity, history, place, and community. A major figure in Pacific and indigenous art discourse, Reihana’s practice has earned her an outstanding international reputation. Her iconic film in Pursuit of Venus [infected] will screen at the fair, accompanied by images from the series. With all editions now sold, Artist Proof 1 is the sole remaining primary market opportunity from this landmark work.

Quills is a photograph from Lisa Reihana’s series Nomads of the Sea – a richly layered narrative that follows directly from her acclaimed Venice Biennale work in Pursuit of Venus [infected]. Nomads of the Sea weaves historical fact with fiction to explore the tensions between cultural leadership, spiritual custom and egotistical desire in the face of foreign political challenge in the 1800’s New Zealand, told through the eyes of two formidable female protagonists.

Milford Gallery

Paul Dibble: The Lost Garden (2023)

Paul Dibble: The Lost Garden (2023)

Combining the pathos of loss with the plural optimism of our unofficial national flower, the kōwhai, Paul Dibble’s The Lost Garden is a powerful narrative of loss as well as a celebration of being.  Lyrical and fluid, and quite simply beautiful, the extinct huia sits atop the metaphorical circle of life, looking back in judgement of who we think we are and our past behaviours.

Darryn George: Whakaari #1

Darryn George: Whakaari #1 (2025)

Darryn George seeks to honour and uphold the mana of people whose names are known and those whose quiet influence has shaped the artist’s life.  Whakaari draws inspiration from Barnett Newman – whose monumental fields of colour are punctuated by vertical lines intended to guide the viewer toward the metaphysical or spiritual.  Encompassing meanings of calm, comfort, and the restoration of peace across emotional, relational, and spiritual dimensions, Whakaari responds to Newman’s ambition by imbuing minimalist abstraction with a renewed sense of meaning and presence.

Jane Ussher: Scott’s Hut Cape Evans 4

Jane Ussher: Scott’s Hut Cape Evans 4 (2008)

Long acknowledged as one of New Zealand’s foremost portrait and documentary photographers, Jane Ussher’s internationally acclaimed photographs of Robert Falcon Scott’s historic hut at Cape Evans honour the early Antarctic explorers.  Creatively manipulating light, Ussher reveals the minutiae of daily life, the rigours of scientific endeavour, and the profound isolation of Antarctica’s extreme environment, highlighting the human stories embedded within these pioneering journeys.

McLeavey Gallery

Bill Hammond Untitled (Wainui work 1)

Bill Hammond

Untitled (Wainui work 1) and Untitled (Wainui work 2)

Soon after these two works were created, the late William McAloon reviewed a Hammond show at Peter McLeavey Gallery. He described this period as Hammond at “the height of his painterly powers”. Pinned to the wall beside these two panels was a postcard McLeavey wrote to Bill from Golden Bay, writing while surrounded by tūīs, bellbirds and Godwits. Entertained by their splendid dawn chorus.

Zhu Ohmu

Zhu Ohmu

Over the past year in Paris, Taiwanese /New Zealand artist Zhu Ohmu completed a three-month residency using the time to experiment with conceptual idea including her phone tile works, reflecting distance from home.

In gradually, then suddenly, the works explore intimacy, distance, and the traces we leave in our attempts to stay close. The hand-coiled ceramic vessels are based on the finger-smudged impressions left on phone screens.

The hues of blues that colour her were inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost, where blue becomes the colour of longing- “the colour of where you are not.”

Ruth Ige

Nigerian artist Ruth Ige who is currently based in Auckland was recognized as the 2025 recipient of the prestigious Rydal Art Award for her work “And you stood in your power”  which showcased her unique style using second-hand plywood, oil sticks, dried leaves and acrylic paint.

Her figures are powerfully set within landscapes or colour fields of blue—impressionistic and speculative spaces that remain purposefully undefined. Her palette draws on the deep lineages of Nigerian indigo fabric traditions and the cultural significance of blue more generally for African communities, for whom it symbolises spirituality, protection, and love.

Artis Gallery

Neil Dawson

Neil Dawson, Kererū
Neil Dawson , Kōtare 

We will be presenting three feathers by Neil Dawson at the 2026 fair, a Kōtare and Kererū (both unique pieces) and a Huia feather which is an edition of 5, which is yet to arrive.

Feathers have long been a recurring motif in Neil Dawson’s practice, appearing in works installed globally—from Touchdown near Transmission Gully in Wellington to sites including the Art Gallery of NSW, Sam Neill’s Central Otago winery, and Shanghai’s skyline.

These new works continue that exploration, using the feather as both subject and point of departure. While visually immediate—light, colour, and a sense of effortless movement—they are underpinned by a strong focus on structure. Feathers are highly refined natural forms, engineered for flight and balance, and Dawson draws attention to this underlying complexity.

Precision-cut from aluminium and polycarbonate, the works heighten surface qualities—iridescence, scale, and finely detailed barbs that respond to light and space. Suspended, they appear to hover, reinforcing Dawson’s long-standing interest in weightlessness and spatial illusion. What initially reads as delicate and decorative reveals itself, on closer inspection, as carefully engineered and exacting.

Jordan Barnes

Jordan Barnes

In this series, Jordan Barnes revisits the language of childhood—makeshift forts, draped fabrics, and improvised spaces—as sites of comfort, imagination, and retreat. These fleeting structures become quiet monuments to a time when the boundaries between reality and imagination were fluid.

Barnes approaches nostalgia as something reconstructed rather than fixed. Veiled forms suggest both presence and absence, while shifts between loose and tightly rendered passages draw the viewer inward.

Born in New Plymouth, Barnes is known for his psychologically charged figurative works. A multiple finalist in the Parkin Drawing Prize, he has exhibited widely and was awarded the inaugural NZAAT Artist Grant in 2010.

Josh Olley

Josh Olley

The work depicts a man’s hand endeavouring to squeeze blood from stone — a metaphor for perseverance and tenacity. 

“As an artist, the challenge of raising my family through stone sculpture has, at times, felt impossible — yet I feel I have achieved this. This work is an encouragement to others to tackle the seemingly impossible.” – Josh Olley. 2025 

The hand is sculpted true to form, embodying strength, tenacity, and determination. The sculpture is carved from a single stone block, ensuring unity of material and form.

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Auckland Philharmonia’s Tchaikovsky 4

Reviewed By John Daly-Peoples

Tchaikovsky 4

6.30 Session

Auckland Philharmonia

Auckland Town Hall

April 9

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Opening the Auckland Philharmonia new series of 6.30 Sessions were two works from Wagners opera “Tristan and Isolde” the  Prelude and Liebestod (love-death).

In the opera this music is used to convey the culmination of the lovers, uniting them in death, the merging of love and mortality. Several of the thematic passages were used in Lars von Trier’s film “Melancholia” which had similar themes of love and destruction.

Much of the music expressed a deep yearning which contrasted with an unsettling anxiety initially expressed by the woodwinds and strings who engaged in a tortuous conversation.

This deep yearning slowly built to an ecstatic onslaught before returning to an earnestness expressing the depth of love and despair.

In the final monuments the orchestra sought a resolution as Isolde comforted the dying Tristan with some explosive music conveying a sense of pent-up energy before the final apotheosis.

The conductor Pierre Bleuse seemed to respond to the music, his body creating sinuous shapes, crouching, arms spread wide and his exuberant hand gestures and dramatic flourishes added to the intensity of the piece.

There are a number of autobiographical symphonies where composers directly use elements of their personal lives, emotions, psychological struggles, and life narratives into the music. These works often act as musical depictions, blending personal experience with thematic development, exemplified by composers like Mahler, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4 like much of his music is deeply autobiographical, often channelling his intense depressions, secret homosexuality, and personal anxieties into his compositions. His most personal works, particularly his later symphonies, served as an emotional outlet for his inner torment, reflecting themes of fate, longing, and despair.

His Symphony No 4 of 1878 was written during a period of severe crisis following his failed marriage. In it he deals directly with the theme of “Fate” and his inability to escape his circumstance. His opera Eugene Onegin finished a year later also has semi-autobiographical elements, with the emotional dilemmas of the characters reflecting the composer’s own experiences with love and social pressures.

However, Tchaikovsky often used his ballet scores, such as Swan Lake as an escape into a “fantasy world” of beauty, contrasting with his intense melancholy.

The work opened with a strident form the brass and woodwinds, its joyful sounds tinged with a sense of desolation which hint at the composer depicting his elation at his renewed love of life but aware of his previous despondency. And the turbulent life around him. He seemed to wallow in his previous despair but looking forward to a new resolution.

The bleakness of the movement was punctuated by signs of light and hope provided by the sounds of the flutes which displayed touches of the composer’s ballet like melodies.

The music built to a crescendo of exaltation and release with the blaring brass which was followed by sequences of truly Romantic sounds lovingly crafted by the conductor.

The second movement opened with the woodwinds producing a Romantic yearning sound with some delightful sequences which the conductor insisted on extracting from the orchestra. In the third movement the strings engaged in a relentless pizzicato which was the composers display of musical showmanship.

The relentless strings wer3e interspersed with various instruments, notably the woodwinds and brass taking on a ballet-like momentum. Then, with e addition of the percussion instruments the orchestra created some exuberant sounds reminiscent of the composers “1812 Overture”.

The conductor Pierre Bleuse seemed inspired by the music his body swaying with intricate movements mirroring the rhythms of the music, with a dramatic display of timpani and cymbals.

After some menacing outbursts the orchestra began a joyous conclusion in an exploration of the composer’s minds and his turbulent past.

Bleuse carefully lowered the volume of the orchestra at times so that when he demanded more intensity, they were able to create a particularly dramatic sound.

The next Auckland Philharmonia 6.30 session will be Sheku & Elgar on August 12th and will feature Sheku Kanneh-Mason , described as a “Global phenomenon”. The British cellist is one of the worlds young classical stars in the world right now. His impressive resume includes winning BBC’s Young Musician of the Year, Artist-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic and performing at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Following his Carnegie Hall performance in April, this August he makes his New Zealand debut, performing Elgar’s Cello Concerto.

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The NZSO’s Resonance: another triumph for André de Ridder

Review by John Daly-Peoples

André de Ridder

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra

Resonance

Conducted by André de Ridder

Auckland Town Hall

April 10

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

In introducing Shostakovich’s Symphony No 8 conductor André de Ridder mentioned a young Ukrainian conductor who had reservations about playing any Russian music during the present conflict. De Ridder acknowledged the complex issue of politics and music but insisted that with a work such as the Shostakovich which is considered to be an antiwar composition that there was a reason for it to be included in contemporary concerts.

De Ridder said he considered the work to be a requiem for all people and the most profound and honest of works which dealt with the outcome of the Second World War.

The work which was written in 1943 in the midst of the war was not well received. It was written after the Battle of Stalingrad and while the composer wrote that it was an optimistic work the Soviet authorities banned it for being pessimistic and “anti-Soviet”.

Ther work opened with huge sounds of dark strings similar to the composers Symphony No 5 written six years before. Some whispering violins could be heard trying to rise above the sounds of the darker strings like voices crying out in a dark and barren landscape.

Even the few rays of light which were suggested seemed to be infused with a darker element, light which seemed to be continually repressed, the darker strings overwhelming the lighter.

There was sense of relentless night and fog which only got darker and more overpowering and then a snare drum heralded a ferocious dance of death followed by a parody of a marching army  leading to a fateful conclusion full of pessimism and an eerie solo woodwind sounding like a lone voice or birdcall on the battlefield.

The second movement opened with sounds of glorious martial celebration or like those of a fairground but these sounds were all brash, discordant and false. It is a section which ends with a plaintiff tin whistle which accompanying the mocking sounds of a parade which become increasing more hectic as the instruments took us on a crazed march of fools.

The final three movements were full of contrasts. There were the pulsing mechanical sounds of war interspersed with moments of light along with the screams of individuals.

Great onslaughts of sound were followed by whispering violins offering  a bleak contrast. These contrasts between fragility and power, between darkness and light between triumph and defeat were central to the work and the composer’s choice of instruments.

This ambivalence reached its conclusion in the fifth movement where the intense light of the violin’s heralds not so much a triumph but a time of reflection and prayer as the orchestra faded to silence leaving the audience to reflect on a deeply tragic event.

The opening work on the programme was Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante défunte”, is a work somewhere between a tribute and farewell to a long departed princess.  Ravel indicated that the piece depicted a pavane as it would be danced by an Infanta such as the one found in Las Meninas the painting by Velazques. He seemed to have imagined the young princess depicted in the painting as preparing to attend a dance or engaged in one. This was not a requiem but a remembrance of a past time, a past elegance and a past princess.

The sweet melodies of the work provided a sensation of fleeting clouds or the passing of frothy dancing gowns and gave the work a sense of meandering either through the ballroom or the corridors of the palace.

The trill of the harp provided images of sunlight on a river or highlighting the dancing figures. The movements of the dance are beautifully realised, the colours and sounds of dance as well as the elegance of the event.

There was change of programme for the trombone work which meant the audience heard a special work composed by Bryce Dessner who had written the music for the film The Revenant. It was played by David Bremner the Principal trombonist of the NZSO.

The work certainly exploited the sounds of the instrument resulting in an intriguing and satisfying work. From the opening we were confronted with an onslaught of notes which worked well with the pizzicato of the orchestra when they combined to give a sense of momentum.

The brass instruments provided a subtle layering of sounds underneath the blaring trombone while the strings created a hovering mysterious sound.

Bremner exploited the sounds and tones of the trombone from its blaring sounds to its eerie breath-like eruptions.

From second movement the orchestra created a changing sonic field as though it was tuning up and the trombone provided a series of short sequences whish seemed designed to test the instruments percussive sounds…

There was also an elaborate conversation between the trombone and the other brass instruments providing some very original sounds and a clever display of the trombones range and tonal textures.

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Helen Clark in Six Outfits : The politician her career and her clothes

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Image Andi Crown

Helen Clark in Six Outfits

By Fiona Samuel

ATC

Until April 26

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Helen Clark in Six Outfits uses the notion of tracking Helen Clark’s career through reference to the clothing she wore at various stages of her life. It is a concept which even the stage version of Clark rejects going on a rant about how she has always been judged by appearance – her hair, her teeth, her voice and her marriage. All those notions which are rarely used to demean male parliamentarians.

The play traces the life of Helen Clark from school kid through to the present as she climbs both the academic and the parliamentary ladders to her unsuccessful bid at becoming the Secretary General of the UN.

Along the way we/she remember the fluctuating fortunes of National and Labour governments as well as encountering the major political figures of the time – Phil Goff, Jim Anderton, David Lange, Jonathan Hunt, Jenny Shipley, Judith Tizard and even Winston Peters -is he still alive.

We also hear the voice of Brian Edwards who acts as a voice-over Narrator and was one of her early media advisors / image consultants. We also get to encounter her more recent media consultant, Maggie Eyre.

Studded though her career we get the major achievements of her and her governments – paid parental leave, free early childcare, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.  legalized prostitution and civil unions for same-sex couples. 

Loooming over the stage is a clever set designed by Dan Williams which features a mountain-side which Clark ascends from time to time. It acts a a metaphor for her ascent to power as well as her physical/ mental / political struggles to reach the summit of her career.

As the older Clark Jennifer Te Atamira Ward-Lealand gives an impressive account of the politician, at time managing to capture the sound and intonation of her voice as well as her stare. Lauren Gibson as the younger Clark while not quite getting the voice manges to give an astute sense of the earlier Clark with her aspirations and self belief.

Ward Lealand also does a reasonable job of some walk-on parts such as Clark’s father a farmer who was at the other end of the political spectrum but still supported his daughter.

While this play is about serous stuff of politics Fiona Samuel takes a comic approach to the material which had the audience appreciating the political and personal witticisms such as the reference to Clark’s early page boy haircut – her “Joan of Arc” look

The play concluded with Ward-Lealand delivering a Clark speech. I couldn’t remember it all, but it went somewhere along the lines of –

“Let me note now the great importance of empowering women, including through education, to be part of leadership at every level. Equality between women and men at decision-making tables ensures that the perspectives of both get full consideration. As women, we are fully justified in asserting that there should be no decisions made about us without us.

When women are at those decision-making tables, they have the power to change priorities to what matters for the health and well-being of families and communities.

Empowered women become the architects of better health and well-being, making informed decisions for themselves and their communities.”

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One man and … his dog

Reviewed by Malcolm Calder

Social Animal

By Damon Andrews and Stephen Papps

Director Damon Andrews

Choreography Caroline Bindon

Lighting and Sound Liam Twentyman

Featuring Stephen Papps

Q Theatre (Loft)

Auckland

Ends 12 April

Reviewer Malcolm Calder

An Anecdotal Soundtrack of my Life

Following a brief run in Wellington, Stephen Papps’ one-man show Social Animal graces the upstairs room at Q for the next week or so.

I lost track of how many and didn’t count anyway, but Social Animal enables Papps to reveal a panoply of characterisations that amply display his skills as a character-actor of some standing. These are the people in and around Joe’s rather narrow world which is that of a fading and insecure

mediocrity. Some are colleagues, some wield power and others don’t. But all are his friends – albeit in different ways and at different times. But only occasionally so. It is the world of theatre after all.

Almost incidentally the central character Joe Quigley – the fading actor – deals with his own realities by finding another reality. A dog. And not just any dog, but a former racing greyhound. And getting there enables Papps to reveal a further panoply of dog characterisations. That’s it a nutshell.

For me, the dogs were the highlight of this one-man performance. I was never in doubt about which dog was which and what they were up to. Pretty much doggie things really.

Before we got to the dogs though, many characters were introduced from the top of the show – some only fleetingly – and I must admit to being a little confused a couple of times. The standout character of course never exists at all … although this only serves to heighten the final denoument.

There are some great comedy lines, many bitter-sweet moments, some hilarious schlapstick and a heap of pace changes. All of which lead to an up, then down, then up again finale.

Worth a look.

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Sculpture at the Aotearoa Art Fair

John Daly-Peoples

Bernar Venet

Art Fair Sculpture Trail at the Aotearoa Art Fair

The sculpture on show at the Auckland Art Fair is always one of the highlights of the show as it is often difficult to access and view large scale sculpture. This year the works on show have been expanding significantly with 24 large-scale works by 18 artists installed across the Art Fair precinct, which extends from the area outside the Events Centre to locations around the Viaduct Basin.

The trail will feature leading Aotearoa artists and major international names, along with strong Māori and Pacific representatives.

The artists include Bernar Venet, Braddon Snape, James Rodgers, Hye Rim Lee, Reuben Paterson, Paul Dibble, Caitlen Devoy, Peata Larkin, Martin Creed, a floating work by Gregor Kregar, and a shimmering installation by Lisa Reihana.

Bernar Venet’s Indeterminate Line is a steel form where bending and twisting are balanced with chance. Loops coil and unravel, reflecting the artists decades-long exploration of lines, geometry, and the interplay of order, chaos, and material presence.

David McCracken

 

In his 2026 work, the weathered corten steel operates as both object and aperture reflecting David McCracken’s enduring interest in balance, repetition, and the tension between solidity and illusion.

He creates forms that appear to extend beyond their physical limits, drawing the viewer into a quiet contemplation of the processes involved.

Ben Pearce

ARLOS, silk & RYOS, Ben Pearce’s large-scale sculpture celebrates nature, its strength, and its delicate balance. The boulder-like sections of his towering forms seem tethered to the firmament yet soar into the air like the supports of some natural colonnade. figurative aspects and character emerge giving them a sense of animated presence. Shapes and concepts emerge and disappear as the forms interact with the space around them.

Paul Dibble

Paul Dibble’s Healing a Busy World acknowledges the return of native birds into the built environments of our cities. His flattened volume, references to building outlines and modern architecture interspersed by rectangular windows filled with light and hope. We also see for the first time a new rich green patina and the emblematic, symbolic sticks of healing kawakawa reclaiming the city.

Reuben Paterson

Reuben Paterson’s Koro is a sculptural work from 2023. Crafted from cast aluminium, painted with automotive lacquer, and encrusted with glass crystals, it showcases Paterson’s ability to create works across a diverse range of media.

Through a diverse range of media he creates works which are visually hypnotic and conceptually nuanced.

Hye Rim Lee

Hye Rim Lee’s artistic practice navigates the fluid threshold between the real and the virtual, translating digital imagination into tangible form. Gold Rose emerges from her iconic 3D animation series White Rose, where virtual fantasies are reborn through material transformation. In this sculptural work, Lee transforms glass — a medium rooted in her digital world — to explore its dual nature: hard yet fragile, liquid yet solid, transparent yet opaque, in her cast Gold Rose.

Ngaroma Riley

Ngaroma Riley is an artist of Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri, and Pākehā descent. She began her carving journey making Buddhist statues while working in Japan. Her work centres on Māori narratives, with a focus on retelling whānau, hapū and iwi stories through a wahine Māori lens.

Her work Kapahaka Queens is a shout out to all the aspiring performers — the ones who live and breathe haka, who learn their words on the bus, sing their waiata in the shower, practise their pukana in the mirror and who give their heart and soul to every performance.

Sione Faletau

Inspired by the Waitematā Harbour, Sione Faletau recorded its sounds and translated their frequencies into kupesi patterns. Lalava ke he Uho – Connected to the Essence is formed through intersecting lines, the sculpture speaks to the DNA strand, symbolising the harbour’s life-giving essence. Lalava – meaning to bind – connects sound, place and identity into a site-specific expression of the harbour’s mauri. This is the first time Faletau has worked on a large-scale sculpture with his earlier works focused on digital and video works.

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Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now

John Daly-Peoples

Cao Fei (SL avatar: China Tracy), i.Mirror, 2007, still from RMB City

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

Forever Tomorrow: Chinese Art Now

Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki

Sat 2 May–Sun 23 Aug 2026

John Daly-Peoples

Next month the Auckland Art Gallery will be opening a  major survey of Chinese contemporary art.

“Forever Tomorrow” showcases how Chinese artists have grappled with China’s transformation since the late 1970’s, producing work that remains visionary and influential today. The exhibition features 67 works by 42 artists and spans performance, photography, sculpture, installation, moving image and new media.

Two years ago the gallery featured a stunning collection of garments by Guo Pei which included  a gown that Rihanna  made famous. The dozens of designs by the Chinese couturier highlighted Guo’s prolific work, with its references to fashion of the past and the present. The exhibition showed how Chinese designers had explored new aesthetic ideas.

“Forever Tomorrow” will demonstrate how Chinese artists have explored, reimagines and reworked art practices, making commentary about important ideas – political, social and artistic.

Dr Zara Stanhope, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited Director of Auckland Art Gallery, says, “Forever Tomorrow” brings to Tāmaki Makaurau a wide range of works that reveal how Chinese artists reflected the seismic shifts that have recently taken place in China and in its relationships  with the world. This exhibition resonates in Aotearoa and in Tāmaki Makaurau as we grow in  cultural diversity and understanding, and in the dynamic cultural experiences it offers that touch us all.”

The exhibition has been curated by Hutch Wilco of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, with  support from Feng Boyi. Feng is a prominent curator and critic who previously served as  director of the He Xiangning Art Museum and Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum. He is currently a researcher at the Institute of Art Sociology at the Sichuan Fine Arts institute based in China.

Pu Yingwei, Purple King Kong: Red and Blue Entangled in Space, 2022.

Hutch Wilco says: “Forever Tomorrow” brings together powerful works that register lived experience — labour, migration, family, intimacy, and technology. Spanning generations, the exhibition reveals how artists have given form to the emotional and psychological dimensions  of everyday life. Together, these works offer a compelling portrait of contemporary  experience, inviting audiences to reflect on how these changes continue to shape individual  lives and shared futures.”

“Forever Tomorrow” features work by Ai Weiwei, Xu Zhen, Xiao Lu and Cao Fei, alongside artists exhibiting in Aotearoa New Zealand for the first time including Lu Pingyuan, Pu Yingwei,  Xiyadie, Lu Yang and 2023 Sigg Prize winner Wang Tuo. The exhibition draws extensively on the White Rabbit Collection from Sydney and the M+ Sigg Collection in Hong Kong, with other  works coming directly from artists and their representative galleries.  Key works include Xiao Lu’s Dialogue, 1989, first presented at Beijing’s landmark China/Avant-Garde exhibition, made infamous when she fired two shots into her installation — a gesture entwining the personal with the politics of the time; Ai Weiwei’s Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995, a photographic series documenting deliberate destruction that questions  history and cultural memory; and Zhang Huan’s To Raise the Water Level in a Fishpond: Beijing, China 1997, a defining performance binding personal memory with collective spirit  through an impossible task.

XU ZHEN®’s “Hello”, 2018–19

Highlights include XU ZHEN®’s “Hello”, 2018–19, a robotic Corinthian column that turns a symbol of Western civilisation into an unsettling presence; Cao Fei’s RMB City: A Second Life Urban Planning, 2007, envisions a virtual metropolis in Second Life, while Lu Pingyuan’s Semi-Auto Wandering Gods series, 2024–ongoing, imagines new folk rituals in collaboration with artificial intelligence. XU ZHEN®’s “Hello”, 2018–19 revisits the legacy of the 1989 China/Avant-Garde exhibition, examining the enduring logic of censorship and self[1]criticism in the cultural sphere.

Wang Tuo, The Second Interrogation (film still), 2023

From Thursday 2 April, a major sculptural work by XU ZHEN® will be on display: Eternity–Tianlongshan Grottoes Bodhisattva, Winged Victory of Samothrace, 2014. The large-scale sculpture combines a Buddhist figure representative of China’s Tianlongshan grottoes with the form of the Greek sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace, and will be freely accessible to view ahead of the full exhibition’s opening.

“Forever Tomorrow” will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue featuring essays and artist profiles, available exclusively from the Gallery’s Shop.

The exhibition is proudly supported by the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation and the New Zealand Government’s Events Boost Fund.

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Ten Thousand Hours

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Image: Simon McClure

Ten Thousand Hours

Gravity & Other Myths

Auckland Arts Festival

Civic Theatre

March 19 – 22

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Gravity & Other Myths

Director: Lachlan Binns

Associate Director: Darcy Grant

Set & Lighting Designer: Chris Petredis

Assistant Designer: Max Mackenzie

Composer: Nick Martyn, Shenzo Gregorio

Costume Designer: Olivia Zanchetta

Production Manager: Martin Schreiber

Creative Producer: Jascha Boyce

Ensemble: Jacob Randell, Alyssa Moore, Kevin Beverley, Lachlan Harper, Annalise Moore, Andre Augustus, Axl Osborne, Shani Stephens

The ten thousand hours rule refers to the concept that it takes that many hours of focussed practice to achieve expertise in a complex field. I suppose that’s why I have never become a contortionist or acrobat even though I did practice for three weekend in a row.

Image : Simon McClure

Seeing the eight highly skilled members of Gravity & Other Myths going through their routines is to enter another realm of physical prowess. They manage to do things that most humans would not only find impossible, they would also never even contemplate them. I the reckon the Gravity team probably put in way more than ten thousand hours of practice .

The show starts off simply enough, a few simple lifts, jumps and handstands, all very clever, and the audience was very appreciative but no clapping. But then the troupe  ramp up the action with the performers taking on more elaborate and risky moves and the audience erupts with, lots of  ohhs, and ahh’s and tremendous rounds of applause.

From then on the audience kept a constant steam of applause, whistles and gasps.

The trick that the team seem to have mastered is that of working together, understanding their colleagues’ intentions, working with the team collectively to achieve incredible outcomes.

Image : Simon McClure

Some of the inspiration for their work probably comes from the Spanish human towers which are a spectacular Catalan tradition and can be up to ten stories high with up to one hundred people.

The towers of this troupe are only three storied but are pretty spectacular for the ease with which they construct them, the way they can link them and the way they effortlessly deconstruct them.

The group is also very good at throwing each other around. A lot of the time they are like trapeze artists but without the trapeze, hurling each of the across the stage as though they were rag dolls.

There were number of individual acts which start off seeming easy. Possibly a few people could leap, hands first ,across two people lying on the stage but diving across four people would be virtually impossible. So, when one of them manages to dive across six people there was an initial gasp of disbelief followed by massive round of applause.

Image : Simon McClure

It is small acts like this which captivate the audience, the attempts by ordinary performers to take on impossible stunts and impossible acrobatic moves. The audiences were always right behind these almost superhuman performers, even when they failed in their attempts, they still got rounds of applause.

In a bit of audience participation one (un)lucky person was cajoled onto the stage where she was quickly instructed in the art of stick figure drawing. After a bit of instruction, she was able to produce a series of composite portraits of stick figures which the group then formed themselves into human versions of her sketchs.

All this tumbling, climbing, throwing and weird acrobatics are supported by Nick Martyn an onstage drummer who interacts with the performers, adding moments of comic relief and hectic drumming solos between the extraordinary acts. 

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Two spectacular concerts delivered by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples


Jian Wang Image : Leilei Cai

Shanghai Symphony Orchestra

Auckland Town Hall

Auckland Arts Festival

March 19 & 20

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The highlights of this year’s Auckland Arts Festival were the two concerts presented by the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the oldest symphony in Asia which has a formidable history of touring.

The seventy strong orchestra under the direction of conductor Long Yu, opened their first concert with a relatively new work by Elliot Leung – “Chinese Kitchen: A feat of Flavors”. Leung has made a name for himself both as a composer who spans Eastern and Western music but also as a composer for Hollywood films.

His background as compose of film music showed throughout his four movement Chinese Kitchen, the opening movement “Deep Fried River Prawns” displaying an inventive use of a dozen percussion instruments.   The collection of instruments including maracas, cymbals, bells, clappers and xylophone created a syncopated sound which recreated the noise, colour and hectic movement of a Chinese kitchen.

This movement and the others showed the composers ability to create musical equivalents of the taste, texture and colours of Chinese dishes. In the second movement “Buddha Jumps on the Wall” the woodwinds created a luxurious sequence with the melodies taken up by the piano and harp. The music flowed effortlessly between moments of savage attack and sequences of little more than whispers. While this was a Western style music it was flecked through with clever traditional Chinese elements. The Western style music could be detected in some Copland style passage as well as a nod to the music of “The Wizard of Oz”.

With “Vegetable in Soup” there was a sense of vegetables bubbling away in a pot, the tempo of the music becoming more animated as the piece evolved and in “Deep Fried Sesame Balls” there was again adventurous percussion playing which could have come from an Indiana Jones film  provided an electrifying display.

Conductor Long Yu used his hands and body to great effect with his generous movements and careful directions which adding to the sense of a watery, misty environment with surprises erupting from the music, seemingly at his command.

Playing Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme” cellist Jian Wang glided effortlessly through the work, revelling in the interplay with the orchestra in a tantalising display which emphasised aspects of the sophisticated composition. He made use of the various solo sections to show an understanding of the work as well displaying his extraordinary technical skills.

He was able to combine, as did Tchaikovsky, an understanding of the romanticism of the Rococo theme as well as debt to Mozart which gives the work its spectacle in the way that cello and orchestra intertwine. The theme was dissected and re-formed in different guises with Wang seemingly finding new opportunities in the melodies as well as exploring its tones, and textures.

Serena Wang Image : Leilei Cai

Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.1 is one of the top ten piano concertos and is the last great Romantic piano concerto of the nineteenth century, full of lyricism as well as many dramatic moments. The pianist has to be capable of producing the most poignant of sounds as well as the most intense.

Pianist Serena Wang was able to deliver both these qualities of the work as she ranged from the pensive to the flamboyant.

From the opening moments where she responded to the brash horns and sharp flourishes of the orchestra Wang dominated the stage with some dazzling displays.

Her expression when playing changed continuously and she took on various poses from rapture to steely focus. At times there was a tenderness to her playing while at others a brutal rawness and then at other times she seemed to be cajoling herself into discovering new depths to the music

Her rapport with the orchestra was constantly changing as well. Battling with the orchestra, chasing the dramatic themes conjured up by the orchestra and then the dynamics would change, and the orchestra would attempt to match her feverish playing. There were also several moments of musical poetry when Wang had interchanges with the flutes, and clarinets.

After the frenetic finale the audience responded with a huge ovation, but this was matched by even great applause when she and the orchestra played a stunning version of Pokarekare Ana. 

The second concert was bookended by two pieces which had featured ih their first concert  Elliot Leung’s – “Chinese Kitchen: A feast of Flavors” and the orchestra playing of Pokarekare Ana with Serena Wang.

The major work on the programme was Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No 2 which was written ten years after his first symphony’s disastrous reception 1897. It is a masterpiece of late-Romanticism, combining a deep Russian melodic yearning with an intense symphonic structure, combining lush harmonies, with an emotional depth.  

There were passages of great delicacy in the first movement which reflected his love of the Russian landscape and Russian history. However, he was unhappy with the political climate in Russia at the time and moved to Dresden, Germany, where he wrote the symphony in 1906. This aspect shows in the work as he seems to be looking forward to a new dawn both politically and musically, the music full of positive aspirations.

The soaring strings and blaring passages owe much to his early friendship with Thaikovsky and the earlier composer’s sounds recur throughout this symphony, notably the 1812 Overture.

In the second movement there were wistful, dreamy sequences as well as urgent, action filled sections while the romantic third movement was carried along by some delightful flutes, filled with intense yearning, giving voice to a modern Russia, a feeling which was being expressed by many Russian writers and dramatists at the time.

Also on the programme was Gigang Chen’s “Er Huang, for Piano and Orchestra” which had been commissioned by Carnegie Hall in 2009 and is based on the composer’s interest in Peking Opera.

Serena Wang’s playing developed with slow tentative sounds, providing a sense of a hazy, limpid environment. The pianist’s crisp sounds trembling above the subdued sounds of the orchestra were like an Impressionist work with each individual note and section clearly articulated.

They were like the images of raindrops on water, or the descriptions of flowers and landscapes. The moods expressed seemed simultaneously to be like Impressionist paintings of the late nineteenth century as well as a depictions of classical Chinese paintings where the aim was to capture not only the outer appearance of a subject but its inner energy and life force.

Wang seemed captivated by the music, being drawn deeper and deeper into its complexity. At times she expressed a celebratory approach to her discoveries, raising her arms in triumph.

Wang’s expression of triumph could be applied to the success of the orchestra’s success in providing Auckland with two outstanding concerts along with two exceptional soloists in Serena Wang and Jian Wang.

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Sincere Apologies: did you really say that

John Daly-Peoples

Sincere Apologies

Don Koop, Jamie Lewis and David Wiliams

Auckland Arts Festival

Loft, Q Theatre

Until March 22

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

It’s opening night of Sincere Apologies but there are only twenty-five people in the Loft at Q with seating for more than one hundred. Maybe people have read about the show already and have found out that they may have to speak. That’s a big no-no for some New Zealanders. Public speaking – that’s when you make a complete idiot of yourself with the wedding speech, or the farewell speech at the office. No wonder only twenty-five turned up.

[I attended the opening night and some adjustments have been made based on feedback from this preview]

It all starts simply enough. An envelope is handed round the group with instructions to keep it moving until the music runs out. Just a version of pass the parcel, and then the lucky person gets to read out the instructions and hand out fifty envelopes.

These are fifty real apologies that are distributed to the audience. They are mainly from the last fifty years, all of them factual, collected by the three creators, Dan Koop, Jamie Lewis and David Williams. There are apologies from government ministers, public figures as well as private individuals, all expressing remorse for things they have said or done or their governments have done. One by one, the audience members step up to the microphone and read them out aloud.

There are some important apologies. New Zealand government ministers apologizing for the government actions during the Land Wars, an on-air apology by Paul Henry to the Governor General Anand Satyanand for dumb things he said on radio and there is also Kanya West apologising to Taylor Swift and Beyonce for dumb things he has said about them.

I got to read out two apologies. One by the chairman of the Fukushima Power Board apologizing for the trouble and harm caused by the explosion and release of radioactive materials into the sea and air.

The other was by Geroge Bush apologising for the treatment of Japanese /American citizens during the Second World War.

There were lots of other apologies for the harm done by war with some private individuals apologising for what their German and Japanese parents may have done during the Second World War.

There was a range of apologies from all walks of life and for all sorts of reasons. There was Tiger Woods apologizing for his infidelity and an apology for the harm caused by the Dawn raids.

There were also a couple of apologies to theatre goers who had made complaints to Q Theatre for unstated reasons.

One apology was very succinct – “Fuck”.

There are no actors in this mix of ordinary people but some of them were as assured as if they were. Others displayed a bit of hesitancy, but all seem to relate to the apology they were reading. Some of the apologies from government ministers were a bit formulaic and those apologies were buried under the same set of words. When these statements are stripped of power, position, and spin they seem hollow, lacking real meaning. Other apologies like Jacinda Ardern’s apology for the Christchurch Mosque murders were filled with meaning and history seemed particularly relevant.

Hearing these apologies, one is made aware of the power of language and sometimes because of the way in which people read them the readings were given an added emotional tone.

There are couple of made-up apologies with dates set in the future – an apology in 2065 to Kiribati and other island nations for the inundations of 2050 and one from the Australian government acknowledging the death of the last koala in existence. The one disappointment was that there was no discussion at the end of the session, only applause by the audience for their own collective performance.