In her first return to Auckland for some years RHONDDA GREIG presents important works that contemplate two central features of contemporary society: the absence of the notion of home in the lives of many and the ubiquity of the shopping list – supply line to the home through the ages.
Greig explores the link between the two concepts through the medium of the written word and the contrast between the cohesion of one and the chaos of the other.
Greig’s work is held in public and private collections in New Zealand and in a number of other countries. She has exhibited notably in galleries in Japan as invited artist and in Scotland where she was Artist-in-Residence at the University of Aberdeen.
Her painting complements her other work as a published poet. In both fields through the action of abstraction and the medium of strong colour she dissects turbulence, suggests relationships, raises demanding questions.
Early on Greig had a period in Auckland studying at the Elam School of Art and spent two years studying architecture at Auckland University. Her architectural studies have always informed her painting and writing. They have also contributed to her awareness of the requirements of given spaces, forms, scales in order to give powerful expression. In her public art installations (she was short-listed for the New Zealand memorial in Hyde Park, London, with New Zealand architect Mark Burry), her architectural awareness has been a critical element of her works.
In her new exhibition Greig employs her skills as graphic artist and poet. Poem becomes painting. Painting employs poetry. The word as it is written conveys through its visual shape and style something of its meaning and contexts. In works recalling the Phoenician origins of script itself the exhibition expresses the continuity throughout human history of the attempt to transmit the idea through word-meaning, word-shape, the visual sound of the word.
A companion book of poetry will follow the exhibition later in 2018.
Greig is based in the Wairarapa.
