This week the arts community has been remembering Nanette Cameron, who passed away aged 95. She's been dubbed "Aotearoa’s preeminent interior designer" by arts organisation Objectspace, "instrumental in the flourishing of interior design practice in Tāmaki Makaurau and nationally." Her passing has been met with tributes, gratitude and aroha for a woman who is described by those who met her as formidable, a sweetheart and everything in between. To hear more about her life Frances caught up with retired director of Objectspace, Philip Clarke, who was director of Objectspace when they staged the major exhibition and published the publication Nanette Cameron: Interior Design Legend in 2013.
Frances talks with artist Chevron Hasset about Far, Far Away, his show opening this evening at Artspace Aotearoa. Guest producer Sam talks to Christian Dimick about his upcoming show, Spilling Heavy Water opening at Kaukau Gallery in Wellington on Saturday. Frances talks to the retired director of Objectspace, Philip Clarke about the life of Nanette Cameron, a pivotal figure in New Zealand Interior Design design who has passed away at 95 years old. To finish the show we have your local arts guide for Tāmaki Makaurau over the next week!
Rachael talked to Bianca Rocca and Toya Webb about their show 'Working Title', on at the George Fraser Gallery. Theo was in studio and played some Korean experimental music from the Bulgasari community. He also played some commentry from John Waters, the director of Multiple Maniacs.
Karin Montgomery is a craft-based artist, working from a background in textiles, interior design and her innate passion for ecology.
Montgomery shows an attentiveness to her ecological surroundings, and prides herself as a gardener and an observer with always an interest in making.
As an observer, Montgomery has drawn close attention to the Camellia flower within her current exhibition at Object Space, The Camellia Society. The show presents ten beautifully detailed hand-crafted replica paper Camellias that line the gallery in an ode to a garden.
Paying close attention to a normally overlooked Camellia plant, Karin puts its beauty to the forefront, reminding us of the little nuggets of beauty sitting right in our backyard. Inviting viewers to engage with attentiveness and to become observers of the beauty within our own ecological surroundings.
Maya had a kōrero with Karin about the show and her overall practice.
Jenna's just read Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu and highly recommends it. If Charles' work on HBO series, Westworld, isn't enough to entice you to read this book, perhaps winning the Fiction prize in the National Book Awards for 2020 will.
August Ward is an artist who grew up in Tāmaki Makaurau, whose primarily painting practice explores the visual signature and emblems of affluence and desire, consumption and the idealised female form – existing in the uncanny valley of womanhood, letting the contrast and intersection of imperfection and glamour lead the work both practically and conceptually.
Her current solo exhibition at Ivan Anthony, World of Interiors, sees Ward furthering her exploration in this realm of subject matter, expanding her painting and drawing practice in scale and form, bringing these sculptural qualities into the works and space surrounding. Crystals adorning the canvas to form a necklace, ledges attached at the base of others with taxidermied mice, and a cavity for a Miss Dior perfume to perch, these symbols become physical adornments to the glamour of their pictorial counterparts. Pushing and pulling each painting’s textural potential, the idea of the surface sits at the forefront of her relationship with oil paint and graphite as her primary mediums.
Sof caught up with August about World of Interiors ahead of its opening tonight.
Music can be a pretty unifying force, especially for the geographically isolated. Kiran talks to Mikey about music critic David Keenan's first novel, This Is Memorial Device, which evokes this idea while portraying a fictional post-punk band in '70s-'80s small town Scotland.
Alex picks a show Mike's had on the brain for ages - the '70s crime drama Quarry. With an antihero whose story spans the Mekong to the Mississippi, Alex gets in behind to make some bold claims of quality.
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