Art has always been an essential part of an engagement with the spiritual. Contemporary artists in New Zealand continue to add to this rich heritage with new expressions from the perspective of their Christian faith.
Our selection of exhibition reviews, offers a window into the art, faith and lives of the artists.
Past reviews are also available from the CS Arts archives by downloading the magazine editions.
If you know of a Christian artist exhibiting soon, please contact the website editor so we can consider reviewing them.
Paul Judd, La Mezz Gallery
Art as we have heard and seen is presented in the colourful splendour of Paul Judd’s recent exhibition Boplicity at La Mezz Gallery, Hamilton. Twelve mixed-media works titled ‘Drawings’ bring visual illustration to the jazz legends of the 1950s and 60s in an explosion of improvisation mirroring their style...
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Jillian Wordsworth, Flax Cafe Wellington
The meditative qualities in Jill’s use of a monochromatic dark blue and white palette has a definite effect of making one step back to reconsider what is usually a very visual and colourful environment...
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A group exhibition of 23 artists, ChristChurch Cathedral and CoCA Gallery
Across the Pacific, Californian authorities literally boxed a long-time veterans’ memorial cross atop a hill in the Mojave National Preserve least it cause ‘offence’...
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Sam Harrison, Solander Gallery
It is a rare privilege these days to encounter a body of work which, by its very methodical workings, defies our contemporary cultures taste for the instantaneous. By using the time honored and much ignored process of woodblock printing in particular, plus sculpture, Sam Harrison has bridged a huge gap in this show...
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Niki Hastings-McFall, Milford Gallery
As a child I had a tiny doll that that shone a pale green in the dark. I thought of it as an angel. My father told me it was carcinogenic and I buried it in our garden, where I imagined it glowing underground, bringing both light and death. Niki Hastings McFall’s Have a little faith reminds me of the loss of innocence I experienced then, and also how deeply complicated images of transcendence can be...
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Nell Nutsford, La Mezz Gallery
Nell Nutsford stretches boundaries and revives the painting experience in her recent exhibition Pink Gravity. The artist presents a collection of 14 self-formed viscoelastic paint sculpted pieces and digital photographs documenting their creation process...
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Helen Langley, Lane Gallery
Inspired by the found objects that are the foundation of her new collection, Helen Langley’s 'New Work' relies on flotsam to become her canvas...
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A Review on the recent feature documentary by director Kathleen Gallagher
The Gallagher family has produced a beautiful 73 minute cinematic nature documentary through the New Zealand landscape. Journeying through the Ureweras, East Cape, Fiordland, Westland, North Otago, Canterbury and Rotorua, Whisperers explores specialist themes through the perspectives of ten New Zealanders all in some way connected to the land...
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Jacquie Haselden, LaMezz Gallery
The role of artist as prophet is reawakened in Jacquie Haselden's latest exhibition Temporal. This striking collection of sculptural forms and drawings act as monuments to space, history, memory and time...
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Irene Richards, Left Bank Gallery
On entering the gallery the viewer's eye is drawn directly to three vivid images strongly suggestive of a religious theme that permeates Irene Richard's exhibition...
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Garry Currin, Milford Gallery
Garry Currin is a conjurer of the light from shadowed lands. His canvases show a parallel universe, or a futuristic view of our own, with all their layers and complexities exposed. They are startling in their freshness...
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Claire Beynon, The Arthouse
Claire Beynon has developed a sculptural side to her art practice. A swollen teardrop of a plumb bob plummets down to hover above a large spirit-level construction in her recent show. These two essential builders’ tools form the backbone to her new series of works...
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Miranda Woollett, Exhibitions Gallery
Walking into Exhibitions Gallery, one is confronted with works that appear to show-case New Zealand iconography— sheep, landscape and native birds, albeit all with a personal twist. As with the title of the show, underpinning paradoxes begin to rivet one’s attention and set up questions that create a need to unpick the deceptively simple images...
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15 New Zealand Artists with Canterbury Connections, SoFA Gallery
What’s going on here? A simple straightforward exhibition of contemporary art - easy on the eye, without in-your-face offensive material – causes a sustained correspondence in the letters page of The Press. The letters were provoked by Andrew Paul Woods in his review ‘A lame-duck exhibition’, The Press, Christchurch, 5th August, 2009, which slated the show for lack of depth or exploration of connections between the artists or their time and place...
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Yong-Hyun Kwon, Salamander Gallery
Crimson, vermilion, fuchsia and lilac. These are some of the eye-popping colours that confront you as you walk into the Salamander Gallery to see Kwon’s show. As a joyful, celebratory cycle of paintings, it is spare, no more than five works, following the same theme and all with the same name ‘Praise’...
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Benjamin King, Moray Gallery
As I entered the gallery, the thing that first struck me was the alien appearance of Benjamin’s sculpture. An ‘Ark’ and a ‘Tower of Babel’ have been intensely crafted with acute attention to detail. These works are curious and designed to be eye-catching...
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Evelyn Kawiti, NorthArt Gallery
Evelyn Kawiti’s 'Lost Voices' is an exhibition of watercolour and Indian ink drawings based on individual pictures of Maori school-children from the 1800s. Kawiti presents for us an honour roll of original characters who, across time, communicate much to us through their stance, garments and facial expressions...
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View past exhibitions for 2009
View past exhibitions for 2008 (Currently under construction)
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