Various Artists with Sofia & Maya

Life in Forms is a survey exhibition of Pauline Kahurangi Yearbury’s practice, currently showing at Te Uru Waitākere Contemporary Gallery. It is the first solo exhibition of Yearbury’s work in a public art gallery. 

Yearbury is considered a leading practitioner in Māori modernist art and was one of the first Māori artists to introduce Māori mythology into contemporary art. Her work is characterised by a bold and illustrative style, of which she is most renowned for her incised wooden panels featuring figures from Māori whakapapa narratives.

She was one of the first Māori women to attend the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, where she worked later as a tutor too. 

Sofia had a kōrero with curator Hester Rowan about Yearbury’s life, practice, and legacy as well as Hester’s curatorial process for putting together Life in Forms

Dominic Hoey is a poet, author and youth worker from Tāmaki Makaurau. 

1985 is Dominic’s highly anticipated third novel. Set in pre-gentrified Auckland, it follows the story of Obi, who faces impending teenagehood after a childhood marked by poverty, dysfunctional family dynamics, (dis)organised crime and violence.

Beth caught up with Dominic about the writing of 1985.

Sofia had a kōrero with Ayesha Green about her current exhibition at Season Aotearoa, Ruin on the Cascade, and her practice generally

She also chatted with Judy Millar and Kate Newby about their respective practices in light of their current joint exhibition at Michael Lett Gallery. 

And for Stage Direction this week, Alice Canton joined Sofia in the studio to chat with Annie Guo and Summer Xia about Comedy Fest.

Whakarongo mai e te whānau x

Ruin on the Cascade is Ayesha Green’s (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Heretaunga, Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) first solo exhibition with Season Aotearoa. 

The title refers to a faux ruin in Stowe Gardens, a Georgian landscape garden in Buckinghamshire established in the early 18th century by British army officer and Whig politician Richard Temple, the 1st Viscount Cobham. Using the Stowe Gardens as a framework, Green explores a range of subjects, including class, land use, knowledge systems, ethics, national identity, and British imperialism through her painting and sculptural practice. 

Sofia had a kōrero with Ayesha about Ruin on the Cascade, her research and thinking behind the works, and her practice as a whole