See Nothing
Truth/Lie Dichotomy
15 December 2017 to 28 January 2018
Curated by Roger Morris, the central theme of the exhibition is political in nature, begging the question ‘What is truth and what is lies?' How is our reality shaped and how do we make sense or find truth behind local, national and global events that shape—or have been manipulated to shape—our thinking and view of the world?
Poster image: .remo, The rape of Bosnia
Percy Thomson Gallery director Rhonda Bunyan has invited well-known Taranaki artist Roger Morris to be guest curator for an exhibition titled See Nothing: Truth/Lie Dichotomy.
“Our current collective mood of uncertainty and insecurity about what the future holds will be reflected in many of the works in this exhibition. Who do we believe? Who can we count on? Who can we trust? Who is accountable?” says Bunyan.
Roger Morris, the policeman turned professional artist, grew up in central Otago. He now lives in his self-built home on Oeo Road, South Taranaki with renowned artist, Marianne Muggeridge.
Much of Roger’s work focuses on what he carefully explains as the ‘truth/lie dichotomy’, or two realities existing in one moment. His thought processes are ultimately depicted in his art which he uses to express and to help process his thinking on global, cultural and political events.
Roger has spent years scrutinising the body of conflicting evidence behind the 911 attacks (represented in much of his current body of work) and believes ‘that an inversion of meaning/reality/truth [the truth/lie dichotomy] is present at all stages of the official account’.
Roger suggests his art is not exploitative. ‘Art is a language beyond speech. It is the last free place to be’.
Roger has brought together an impressive line-up; Ngahina Hohaia, Dan Levin, Johnny D Painter, Alby Carter, Dale Copeland, Raewyn Turner, Wayne McVicar , and Arlo Edwards.
Puffer fish, painted
'Any similarity to a public figure is purely fortuitous.'
Assemblage
Dan Levin is an assemblage artist from California.
Friendly lunacy and logic do an odd kind of dance in his assemblage art which can be found in collections from New York City to New Zealand.
Despite wild-eyed humour and hints of chaos, Levin’s Art has a surprising cohesiveness through a series of variations on a particular theme.
Puniho artist Dale Copeland has chosen four works relating to our ‘voluntary blindness’.
“We do not want to see our mortality.
We don’t see the truths which follow the slogans.
We prefer the comfort of sameness rather than the challenge of necessary change.
And we teach children lies when the lies are easier than the truths”.
Raewyn Turner will focus on the effects of our olfactory senses and the way they affect our perceptions.
This exhibition promises to challenge your perceptions, make you question what you’ve been lead to believe and maybe, even induce a shift in consciousness.
Bunyan believes the wider community will react and engage with the exhibition, even if they don’t agree with the artists’ spin.
“A wide range of people will want to view the exhibition out of curiosity. There are many things happening within our own community that have lead ordinary folk to feel stirrings of protest in their belly. This exhibition will reveal how art can be used as a vehicle for change.”
Dan Levin
Friendly lunacy and logic do an odd kind of dance in the assemblage art of Dan Levin..
In his approach to the medium this artist understands that logic, even of a twisted variety, can prevent the appearance of randomness in work that’s all about discarded objects. Despite wild-eyed humor and hints of chaos, Levin’s art has a surprising cohesiveness of design through a series of variations on a particular theme. While his art may startle and amuse the observer, there is a method of the artist’s careful devising.
Levin was born in Los Angeles in 1962, raised near New York City and returned to California where he earned a degree in graphic design and fine art in 1984. He has exhibited in Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Australia and France with work in collections from New York City to New Zealand.
Having spent four years living in Australia and Europe, the artist now resides in Santa Barbara, exploring nature and fabricating assemblages.
“One man’s trash is another man’s career."
Framed collage
Dale Copeland
‘Eccentricity may be the wavering line between genius and insanity.’
Copeland has travelled from nuclear physics and mathematics to computer programming and website-writing. But always making, always putting-together. Sometimes the serious mathematician, always the gleeful ‘magpie from Hell’, she is most at home when surrounded by the total chaos of the studio while bringing meticulous order to an assemblage: a collection of treasures which combine their lost histories to make a story of their own. Not an anecdotal story, but a song, a feeling, a descriptor of the pain and the glory of being human; the joy of being alive and the sombre reality of knowing your own mortality.
Assemblages of found objects – the philosophy of the found.
Alby Carter
Reality is the starting point, the aim is to make it ‘painterly’. ‘If you paint reality perfectly, you aren’t doing the artist’s job because the art has to tell you something about what the artist feels about what they are painting.’
Alby describes his state of mind when painting as ‘A blank. It’s more about feeling it than thinking it’
Hid studio is a converted garage lined and stacked with paintings fast-brushed by this prolific artist.
‘I paint about things rather than of things.’
Print, $700
Stone, $10000
Wayne McVicar
"The One Project has focused on the pathways immediately required to overcome the dire peril of global warming.
Social and economic disruption will significantly compound as the human induced aspect of greenhouse gas emissions continue.
This work ‘The Last Tree” is a future landscape of our temperate home.
Are we going to continue to hasten the extinction of our species? or...
Will we agree to combine our intelligence to implement change on a global scale.
Let us, right now, make our decision."
Wayne Mc Vicar is a sculptor living on Aotea/Great Barrier Island since 1994.
Introduced to stone and wood sculpture in Taranaki when living there and has completed many public and private commissions since then.
He is constantly inspired within nature, to participate fully in the circle of life.
Ngahina Hohaia
Taranaki, Kahui Maunga, Parihaka, Greek
Ngahina's exhibit includes 50 reclaimed Taranaki farm fence battens, pine, fencing wire, fencing staples, fencing clips, fencing paint, albatross feather
Arlo Edwards, mixed media, vinyl, $1100
Roger Morris, collage, oils, 1000 x 660, $650
Dale Copeland, assemblage, $710
Jan Huijbers, acylic on canvas, $2975
Alby Carter, oil, fence post, $2500
Raewynne Turner, essential botanical pils, base and heart in glass Vials, $300 each
Jonny de Painter, egg tempura on gesso panel, $3600
Raewyn Turner, oil on linen, $10,000
Dale Copeland, Barbie doll heads, old wooden wheel, on chopping board. 'It feels wrong when the beautiful and young go under' $920
Dale Copeland, assemblage, $1040
Woodblock print, 660 x 360, $1428
Roger Morris, oil, 2000 x 1240, $7800
Dale Copeland ,assemblage including clay figure by Roger Morris, $520
Jonny de Painter, series of four diorama, assemblage of found objects, re-purposed light boxes
Dale Copeland, old display hand from haberdashery shop, clock chimes, parchment, time pieces, $1500
Roger Morris, oil on canvas. $7800
Video
See Nothing – Truth/Lie Dichotomy.
Synopsis by Roger Morris
