A Walk Around 'Lipstick and other tropes'

Due to New Zealand's Covid-19 response, Janice Giles' exhibition 'Lipstick and other tropes' at Cottleston Gallery, was regretfully closed a week earlier than advertised.
But if you didn't see it, or would like to revisit it, here is a rather wobbly video of my wander around the gallery.

Lipstick (and other tropes)

A great opportunity to meet one of Tauranga's well-known artists and view her newest work!

LIPSTICK
(and other tropes)

Janice Giles has made art in one form or another throughout her life.
In recent years her work has included abstracts in acrylic; linocuts, intaglio, and collograph printing. Janice has been a finalist in exhibitions at the Rotorua Museum; The Miles in Tauranga; and the Molly Morpeth Canady in Whakatane. She has also won, and been runner up in the Tauranga Society of Artists annual Supreme Awards.

For this exhibition she has returned to earlier styles of contemporary figurative and portrait work.

Background and focus of the exhibition:
Janice’s mother, Val, was a maker of textile art in all its forms. Because Val had grown up during the Great Depression of the 1930s’ she had been in the habit of saving and repurposing resources. After Val’s death, Janice found dozens of lipsticks among her effects. In the spirit of Val’s dislike of waste, Janice resolved to find a way to use these in her own work.Janice is delighted to be able to focus on a body of work that allowed her to explore the use of lipstick with Cottleston Gallery - a gallery that would appreciate the themes and style of work.

Technically, finding ways to work with lipstick so that it would be durable was a challenge that required a lot of experimentation. Initially, Janice found some success making small works including lipstick and linocuts into encaustic wax mediums. Some of these works will be available at Cottleston. However, the bulk of the works are on board in mixed media that includes lipstick, even if only as a light glaze. All lipsticks are named and credited where possible.

In keeping with the concept of recycling, Janice has repurposed or embellished all frames used to contain the work. This has added another layer of consideration to her creative decisions.

Where: Cottleston Gallery of course! 128 Oropi Road, Tauranga.
For the opening night parking is limited, so, unless you have a disability card, please park in the Stadium Grounds at Greerton Park. Sorry, there is no wheelchair access to the gallery.When: Opening Night 5.30pm 6 March 2020. All welcome to view. Drinks and nibbles.Otherwise 11am to 4.30pm Tuesday to SundayCloses 6pm 29 March.
Check out the event on Cottleston's Facebook page to keep up to date.
Here are the event details

The International Bee Appreciation Society AGM

 24 February - 19 March 2017
Was it a meeting?  Was it an art exhibition?  Whatever it was, by the last day (19.3.17), more than sixty real people had visited Cottleston to view the sixty tiny (A5) watercolour human bee-appreciators' portraits and participate in the inaugural meeting of a brand new society: the International Bee Appreciation Society.
Red dots were abundant and the artist and writer is pleased to report that those who had requested or been coerced into having their portrait painted but who missed out this time, there will bee another and it will be even bigger and better! Contact Cottleston Gallery to bee included. Purchased absent members will be present by Proxy Print.

Those who had their portrait here will be issued with a special gorgeous frameable 'Foundation Member' certificate, and will also be eligible to receive a free quarterly newsletter containing amazing bee information, competitions, special discounts of bee-related products and more.
Associate membership is also available.  

There is more information in this article in the New Zealand Beekeepers' newsletter here.
And there is an article from the SunLive here. 


Here are some views of the gallery during the exhibition.

Thank you to Lee Switzer of ARTbop for the first two.

Julie Green and Rosemary Peek. Opening night - Photo by Lee Switzer ARTbop

Wendy Pedersen, opening night - Photo by Lee Switzer ARTbop

The Bee Appreciation Society Annual General Meeting

The B.A.S AGM - Tiny portraits by bee-lover and artist Katherine Steeds

The gallery will is soon to be host to this inaugural meeting. 
The Bee Appreciation Society members value bees for many different reasons.  There are almost as many reasons as there are bee-appreciators coming to Cottleston's walls this month!

The preview evening is from 5.30pm Friday 24 February.  All welcome.  Drinks, nibbles, live music and free honey tasting.

NB. For the preview evening, Cottleston requests all visitors park in the nearby stadium grounds unless holding a disability card.  We regret we do not yet have wheelchair access to the gallery.

Remains of the Day

A popular exhibition, Remains of the Day,  by Deborah Forkert, has just closed at the Cottleston.
The first nine images were taken by ARTbop's photographer Lee Switzer as Deborah talks about the motivations, stories, content and techniques she used for her works.

 

Deborah Forkert - Remains of the Day

For five years Deborah Forkert has worked with the dried paper covers of used tea bags, experimenting with and developing a variety of textures, connection methods, spatial patterns and linear joins. In conversation with her, Forkert's enthusiasm for the materiality of the covers shows as she waxes lyrical about the brands, colours and texture tendencies. She describes each patterned cover as 'a moment captured in time with a memory imprinted on it', each a unique individual, which forms a collective as beautiful as a stained glass window. 

  

She notes the 'threads' of continuity of rituals and traditions of society's past, present, and future, and extends the use of her medium into that of a metaphorical fabric - a narrative of sorts. Using memories of her childhood for inspiration, she also sees the fabric’s similarity to tapa cloth, and has appropriated and extended this humble, yet ethereal material to make frequent reference to many of her Pacific and New Zealand roots.

'Memories of My Mother's Piupiu: Dawn'.  recycled teabags, mixed media on plywood

 

 

 Forkert's solo exhibition 'Remains of the Day' opens at the Cottleston Gallery at 6pm on the 4th January 2017.

Decision - a virtual visit

'Decision' by German-based artist Sheena Mayer was very well received.  She flies out from Auckland today and many in the local art community will miss her.  It has been so wonderful to see such a quietly confident artist working for the last two months in the studio during her artist in residency.  Her encapsulations and delicate black ink monotypes reflect her explorations into the concept of Wandering.
Here is a wee look at the exhibition as it was in the front room at the Cottleston.

 

Sheena Mayer with some of her monotypes from her solo show 'Decision'

Decision

Sheena Mayer is from Germany and her degree in Art (MLitt) is from the prestigious Glasgow School of Art.
While Artist in Residence at the Cottleston, Sheena has begun a body of work that will be continued when she returns home.  'Decision' consists of these first ideas in the form of monotypes and 'capsules' of found objects.

wan • der
verb /' wån-d(ə-)r / to walk / explore / amble in an unplanned or aimless way with a complete openness to the unknown.

The exhibition 'Decision' will open in the corner room at Cottleston on 10 December at 11 am and close on the 17th at 4.30pm.  All welcome.

Daily Voices - Viv Davy

'Daily Voices' has been very well attended over the last two weeks and it was great to see familiar faces as well as a large number of new visitors to the gallery.  It was especially nice to listen to conversations that grew out of visitors' reactions to Viv Davy's work, especially the Codex series, and the Lost Voices works.  Most visitors enjoyed the complexity and layering of ideas, which in turn brought up memories and new ideas for many. As manager I always so enjoy people's reactions and participation.
This exhibition has now closed but here is a wander through the gallery in case you weren't able to make it to see it.