My goal is to celebrate and showcase the exciting and constantly evolving world of contemporary print media through artist interviews exhibition reviews, studio visits and events.
Exhibition: Off the Press II
Off the Press II is the second iteration of an annual exhibition featuring Ina Arraoui, Maree Brogden, Jude Gordon, Anita Mudaliar, Brie Rate and Rachael Schanzer. Each artist has presented a selection of recent work in response to their concerns about our inner and outer ecologies and our personal relationship to the natural world.
Faith McManus
Faith McManus is a printmaker and educator based in Northland’s Kaipara Harbour. She works predominantly with woodblock, preferring large scale compositions that often utilise vivid colours and incorporate traditional raranga patterns. Personal narratives that draw on her Māori (Ngā Puhi, Ngāi Takoto) and European (Croatian) heritage inform much of her work.
Vivien Davimes
Vivien Davimes is a printmaker based in the coastal township of Waiake on Auckland’s Northshore. Her work is inspired by her natural surroundings, in particular the ocean, coastlines, boats, and sea birds which have been a lifelong passion.
Exhibition: Artful Narratives
Toni Hartill is an Auckland based artist who uses printmaking as a tool for creating 2D and 3D works. Her first solo show Artful Narratives showcases an impressive collection of her artist books, driven by historical and personal narratives with a strong underlying theme of environmental protection.
Exhibition: Apertures
Makyla Curtis is an artist whose work intersects poetry, printmaking and letterpress, based in Tāmaki Makaurau -Auckland. The show features artist books, poems, wall hangings and site-specific ephemera, including stones, plants, and pieces of driftwood.
Exhibition: Weathered
I caught up with Auckland based artist Celia Walker about her upcoming show Weathered at Arthaus Contemporary, Orakei where she’ll be showing new work alongside and in collaboration with Toni Mosley, 9 – 27 February 2022.
Exhibition: Towards Strangeness
Towards Strangeness is a group show of five established print artists: Prue MacDougall, Kyla Cresswell, Nan Mulder, Kathryn Madill, and Catherine Macdonald. Collectively, these works encapsulate feelings of solitude, reverence, and awe for our natural environment, exploring our relationship to these elements both externally and within.
Exhibition: Beyond the Surface
Beyond the Surface: Re-imaging History, features new work by artist, printmaker and educator Toni Mosley created during her three-month artist residency at Howick Historic Village.
Bridget Inder
Bridget Inder is a Melbourne based contemporary artist originally from Central Otago. Her work is deeply connected to her sense of place and an intense love of the land that makes up part of her hybridised identity of strong Pakeha and Samoan heritage
Jo Ogier
Jo Ogier is an artist, painter-printmaker, environmentalist, and educator based in Christchurch. Much of her work is site-specific, with the aim to increase awareness about the unique species from the area.
Marian Maguire
Marian Maguire is a Christchurch based artist who has been working in the arts for over thirty-five years as a master lithographer, painter, printmaker and gallery director.
Exhibition: Expressions and Movement
This exciting new constellation of work by Rachel Schanzer and Anna Molineux that is an eloquent meditation on the constantly shifting, dynamic nature of life and human emotion.
The Wellington Centre for Book Arts
Recently established print studio to teach and pass on the skills of letterpress and all associated book arts.
Tim Li
Tim Li is an artist, printmaker and educator whose work pays homage to our fascinating and diverse marine life. https://inaarraoui.com/tim-li/
Artisan Screen Prints + Thomas Lynch
Located in Wellington’s Shelly Bay, Artisan Screen Prints is an environmentally and socially conscious print studio run by founder Thomas Lynch whose print journey started with screen-printing shirts for the music industry.
Marci Tackett
Marci Tackett is an artist whose practice combines new technology and traditional aspects of printmaking to play with visual perception through multiple layers of abstract shapes and colour fields.
Wai-te-ata Press
Employing the digital hand-made to engage diverse communities in the art of letterpress, the team at Wai-te-ata Press are bringing the stories of these communities alive through multilingual projects and publications.
Denise Durkin
Wellington based artist Denise Durkin creates expressive, abstract monoprints, brimming with life as she continues to explore the boundaries of mark-making in her arts practice.
John Perry
Cultural icon John Perry has been active in the arts scene since he graduated from Elam in the 1960s, working as an artist, curator, educator, art dealer, consultant and valuer. A lifetime of collecting can be viewed at his shop Global Village Antiques & Collectables in Helensville, Auckland.
Kyla Cresswell
Wellington based artist Kyla Cresswell utilizes intaglio and wood-based printmaking techniques to explore the sense of quiet and stillness embedded in the landscape.
Luca Nicholas
Recently completing a Master of Visual Arts at AUT, Luca Nicholas received the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award for his delicately layered etching Hyper-ballad (2020), which can be seen at his first solo show, Triple Axel, comprised of an impressive range of work from his undergraduate and postgraduate studies.
Luca Nicholas – Triple Axel
GTO Printers + Graham Judd
Graham Judd runs an award-winning letterpress printing company, teaches and mentors young letterpress enthusiasts and has recently established a mobile print shop with the aim of sharing his love of letterpress across the country.
GTO Printers + Graham Judd
Celia Walker
Inspired by urban ecologies and walked landscapes, Celia Walker’s art practice embodies her commitment to engaging with her immediate environment to tackle global environmental issues. Her work includes curating collaborative print exchanges, installations and exhibitions.
Celia Walker
Exhibition: Thinking of Place II
For this ambitious cultural exchange, exhibition, each artist has responded to multiple aspects of place, providing visual and conceptual representations of personal experiences or shared narratives of a specific physical environment. Covering many approaches in ideas and printmaking techniques, Thinking of Place II provides a snapshot of contemporary printmaking from several locations around the globe.
Exhibition: Thinking of Place II
Exhibition: Out of the Cupboard
Although often referred to as ‘books’ artist’s books share little resemblance to the books on our bookshelves at home, instead opening up new worlds for the imagination to explore by incorporating different forms, folds, materials and imagery to challenge perceptions of what a book can be.
TKPT Studio +
Hamish Oakley-Browne
The Te Kowhai Print Trust Studio is a flourishing centre for novice and professional printmakers alike to immerse themselves in the world of print, thanks to the management and vision of printmaker extraordinaire Hamish Oakley-Browne.
https://inaarraoui.com/te-kowhai-print-trust-hamish-oakley-browne/
Aiko Robinson
Having recently graduated from Tokyo University of Fine Arts, Aiko Robinson continues to celebrate sexuality with humour and playfulness in the tradition of Shunga – Japanese erotic art.
Ina Arraoui 