To Delve:
to dig, to explore, to reach within.
Karen Covic I Ruth Phipps I Jo Dalgety
These three artists share a connection through their association with Railway Street Gallery and first-year study in the Whitecliffe School of Fine Arts Master of Arts programme. Together, as individual artists, they explore their internal motivations in mark-making.
Karen Covic's overarching inquiry is based around the making and unmaking of art through a process of layering, adding and subtracting. In this current body of work, the inquiry is based around the structure of the grid and the disruption thereof through a series of actions. The grid in this instance taking the form of a pattern, weave and stitch and the disruption being an unravelling, unpicking and undoing. The ordered neatness of pattern opposes to the resulting muddle of loose ends.
This process references the two sides of a tapestry. The tapestry loom presenting a framework in the warp and weft of a weave which creates interesting visual interactions: the grid competing with the uncontrolled fibers and loose ends.
This led Karen to research the tradition of tapestry. Tapestry is the first example of decorative wall hanging, primarily woven by women and used to communicate significant events. It is a physical and laborious craft which underpins the arts and craft movement.
Ruth Phipps is interested in exploring the tensions between recognition and ambiguity. Everyday objects or cloth are modelled while seemingly afloat in an indeterminate space; illuminated by an unknown light source, they are without shadows or clues as to depth or context. Against such a blank background there is no anchor to their setting, and what might be the surface of a table is simply an abstracted geometric shape.
Ruth’s works take up references to the classical traditions of drapery and still-life painting in Western art, and she aligns herself with a wider contemporary movement in painting marked by a representational language. Yet her paintings also push back against expected conventions. There is an interest in surface which keeps a mimetic realism at its core, however her intention is to use figurative content as a way of understanding painting itself as the subject of encounter through a focus on the surface and process of painting.
Her central concerns are the quality of nearness and concentrated attention through a slow observation and a meticulous attention to the texture of light as it reveals surface detail. Where attention to surface detail and the materiality of the folds suggests the ‘real’, abstracting space and removing the object from its usual context introduces the ‘unreal’. Her intention is to find a shift where the object becomes secondary to the abstracted qualities of light and paint, and where the work moves from the illusionistic depiction of everyday reality to an artifice, a theatrical simulation. What is presented is an altered reality.
‘My practice is centered around the Hauraki Plains, my childhood home. I recently uncovered the story of the destruction of the giant Kahikatea forest and the swamplands—a revelation that shocked me from many angles. Most surprising was my lack of knowledge about this history, which prompted me to delve deeper into the area's past. Through my artistic practice, I aim to tell stories, provoke thought, and spark meaningful conversations.’
Jo Dalgety has been thinking about the lens of care within her work. Bruno Latour and his philosophy of Care Ethics invites us to consider care for a non-human-centric world and to recognise our interconnectedness with nature and yet despite our awareness of the intricate connections between plants, animals, people and land, monetary concerns still heavily influence decision-making in how we approach the use of the land around us.
“Neither tales of progress nor of ruin tell us how to think about collaborative survival.” – Anna Tsing. While Jo Dalgety’s painting focuses on her family land and the unintended harm worked upon it, Jo's practice is calling us to care; to start conversations, to offer hope. At the core of her work rests a belief in nature, that the cycle of life will continue, and heal. That spring comes after winter.
There will be a Q & A with the 3 artists on Saturday 12th October 3-5pm.
All are welcome, this will be a wonderful opportunity to explore, to dig deeper, to DELVE into the practices and motivations behind the work shown on the gallery walls.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Exhibition Wed 25th September - Sat 19th October
Q & A Sat 12th October 3-5pm