Various Artists with Sofia & Maya

Brunelle Dias is a Tāmaki-based painter whose practice is interested in the transiency of everyday life and moments. Exploring the past and present, friends and family, Dias offers a site of reflection in capturing these intimate settings – bringing the viewer into her figurative paintings and the often complex interpersonal relationships between herself and her subjects. 

Currently showing as part of A Moment to Hold at the Arts House Trust at Pah Homestead, her work sits with six other women artists engaged in painting and drawing practices – Hannah Ireland, Christina Pataialii, Johanna Pegler, Kate Small, Barbara Tuck, and Ruby Wilkinson. In this space, through a range of subjects, the artists each explore the intricacies of memory, both in their lucidity and haziness alike – using painting and drawing to give form to these ideas through the act of making. 

Sof had a kōrero with Brunelle Dias about the show and her overall practice.

The Elam Graduate Show special! 

This week, Sof and Maya visit the Elam Graduate Show, interviewing BFA graduates Yana Sanvictores, Sophie Drury, Keira Haig, Ella Rowe, and Fabian Strauch, as well as MFA graduates Michael McClelland and Thea Long. 

You can go see their work, as well as the rest of the graduating cohort’s, at the Elam Fine Arts Studios at 20 Whitaker Place this Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th November, from 10AM to 4PM. 

You can also visit the online portfolio of work and creative practice research from previous graduate students here, where this year’s graduates’ work will be posted shortly as well. 

Whakarongo mai! <3

Sara Hughes is a Tāmaki-based artist known for her rich exploration in geometric abstraction through her dynamic installations, and painting practice. Hughes continuously investigates colour and composition—tuning into their own inherent language to produce these dazzling paintings that hold this wonderful capacity for light, movement, and memory. 

In her current exhibition Colour Memories at Gow Lansford Onehunga, Hughes presents a beautiful new body of paintings that continues in her exploration of memory, but more specifically to these ideas of artistic influence and lineage. Within Colour Memories, Hughes approaches these ideas of artistic lineage by directly responding to 11 female painters that have influenced her own artistic practice over the years. Bringing both their paintings and Hughes' response paintings into the gallery, creating a space of direct dialogue, response, and exchange between works and artists.

Maya caught up with Sara about the show and overall practice. 

Georgia Arnold is a Tāmaki-based multidisciplinary artist working intuitively across a range of mediums, including drawings, ceramics, painting, metalwork and sculpture. 

In her current exhibition at Melanie Roger Gallery, Retreat, Arnold draws inspiration from her time spent house-sitting in Pukekohe, letting her semi-rural surroundings, new routines, and everyday encounters inform the direction of a new body of mixed media drawings and sand cast charms. Using her art-making as an escape from conflict and a canvas for healing, the works embrace the chaos, tension, and potential for a messy, expressive, and loud autobiography, obscuring the subjects of her introspection in the process. 

Sof had a kōrero with Georgia Arnold about Retreat and her overall practice.