The Gallery is open Monday-Friday 9.30am-4.30pm and Saturday 9.30am-2.30pm, except holidays and change-over days between exhibitions. Artists proposals are welcome-- click here for more details.
Recently on at THE NEW ZEALAND STEEL GALLERY:
ABOUT "INFUSION" Exhibition and Chinese New Year:
Chinese New Year will be celebrated this year at The New Zealand Steel Gallery on 12 Feb 2010 at 5pm. We have assembled an impressive line up of Chinese Artists to combine their work into a show full of stunning paintings and cast glass by local artist Susan K. Louie.
The group of artists have decided on the name ‘Infusion’ for this collaborative project as it reflects the flow and intertwining of the different identities of each artist and the merging of meanings and messages in their work.
Although all 6 Artists are Chinese they are all very different people with different approaches of interpreting their cultures. Interestingly, Susan K. Louie references her childhood memories of life living on a market garden as a Chinese New Zealander and it forms a study of her identity, heritage and culture. Her new cast glass works for this exhibition looks for inspiration from the landscape outside her Pukekohe Studio. Pukekohe, being a market garden country inspires her work in which simple forms lend itself to the farmland with the undulating scenery and various colour changes happening during the course of a day.
Sin-Mae Chung is also a New Zealand born Chinese artist and the youngest artist in the group. She creates works that reflect her ‘hybrid’ culture and experience through mimicking. Strangely mimicking and transforming is a theme that is a focus of Haihui Wang’s work as well; he will contribute beautifully serene canvasses of people swimming. In these paintings he says painting becomes a kind of meditation for him where he tries to become part of the transforming process. In a state of mental drift he imagines he can float, breathe and immerse himself in a medium where touch, temperature, sight and distant sounds all blend together and a person becomes something completely different in the water. His work is about the ancient story about Taoist master Zhuang-zi, who one day at dusk, dreamt he turned into a butterfly. Zhuang-zi was so delighted that for a while he entirely forgot who he had been. Eventually he had to ask the question: Did he turn into a butterfly or did the butterfly turn into him?
The other artists Loyal Chen, Daniel Liu and Yue Qu Zhao have paintings in this exhibition which, although all very different completely captures that theme of movement, serenity, blending and transformation with a mood that can only come from people who have grown up in a culture so strong and steeped in heritage that the visitor can’t help but feel themselves tumbling into a different world. Will you be able to for a moment forget who you are and allow yourself to imagine yourself differently?
We hope this exhibition will serve as an eye opening journey for the people of Franklin.
On opening night we will have a special performance by the EPAC LION Dancers at 5:30pm. This is definitely something to mark in your Diary as it is one of those events that capture your imagination and make you feel alive!
Recently on at the New Zealand Steel Gallery:
"HELLO CITY'
This exhbition features the following artists:
Chris Andrew - Screen Prints
Jean Picot - Acrylic Paintings on paper.
Tracey Williams - Screen Prints
Sarah Hunter - Ceramics
Brendan Adams - Wall sculpture
Janette Cervin - Oil on Canvas
Candy Cho - Pencil Drawing on paper.
The works are all very different but have the common thread of dealing with questions on authority, consumerism, western society, domestic violence and a general feeling of some sort of undefinable resentment.
“City life is millions of people being lonesome together.”
Henry David Thoreau
"Stories of an immigrant translated into art'
by Onlie Ong
Can Opener Banana by Onlie Ong $150.00
Christmas is a time in the year when most of us go bananas trying to find the perfect gifts for our loved ones. This year The New Zealand Steel Gallery has decided to embrace the silly season by inviting artist Onlie Ong to exhibit his series of banana sculptures. They come in all shapes and sizes and even though they are extremely attractive with their fun appearance and glossy lifelike glazes which ape the real thing perfectly they do carry a deeper message.
Onlie uses the banana as a metaphor to depict his struggles to adapt in New Zealand when he moved here from Taiwan in the early 90’s to Tuakau. The banana represents himself who he says is yellow on the outside but white or westernised on the inside. He uses the banana as an almost live character that bends and morphs into other things as a way of trying to transform or disguise itself. Since Franklin is made up of so many people who had once been immigrants to the area themselves, the exhibition would have plenty for people to relate to.
Onlie has also completed a large series of paintings on canvas detailing his experiences as an immigrant but in these he has used different imagery to tell his stories. These paintings are all exhibited for the first time here in Franklin.
The exhibition is perfect for two main reasons; one it has a message for anyone who has ever felt like the outsider, like they are at a Christmas dinner with strangers or have had to work hard to fit in to their environment. The second; the artworks make fantastic fun gifts with a deeper meaning. Much like Christmas itself – it is all about the message.
Please Note: Some of the banana's are still available from the ARTEFACT gallery shop. They range in price from $100- $200 each.
Recently On:
'Chew Chew'
Mouth Watering Art from New Zealand Mouth and Foot Artists
Painting is a very hands-on experience. Expect if you don’t have any. The New Zealand Mouth and Foot Painters are currently working on completing their annual exhibition at the New Zealand Steel Gallery. This event is always much anticipated by the community because the work are very well resolved and executed with a high level of skill one would expect from any able bodied painter. Once you realize that these artists had to adapt new motor skills and eye coordination with their mouths to be able to capture their subject matter with such accuracy, the sense of wonderment really starts. Anyone who knows how to paint know that it is a challenging pursuit and when you have very limited movement to create expressive strokes and still manage to manipulate your mouth to achieve compelling works it is something to be really proud of. As Michael Angelo said; “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands’.
Recently On: At the New Zealand Steel Gallery:
" It's a small world'
7 October - 20 October 2009
Not so long ago a small idea started forming in the minds of a group of ladies who go by the name of the ‘Knitting Grannies’. They had always been a bunch of actively charitable women who met regularly to knit items for the children of Auckland which passed through Middlemore Hospital and reached out to the wider community.
A group with passion and dedication like that always need a bit of a challenge and that came in the form of The New Zealand Steel Gallery approaching them to participate in creating a piece of artwork for the community in a similar vain to projects held in Auckland by the ‘Knitterati’ who knitted blankets and then donated them to the City Mission after they had innovatively been displayed in an Auckland Gallery.
We believed that we could achieve something similarly fun and worthy, so set about developing a concept. Joan Loader the leader of the knit pack suggested an installation of knitted booties which is to be presented in a manor that would comment on the way our society deal with children. This involved careful thinking of suggestive placement, music, lighting and of course a large volume of booties to create the desired effect and so the ambitious figure of 2000 was decided on.
Initially a few shook in their boots at the prospect of that many booties, but with gusto
they started to spread the word and it wasn’t long before many people in Franklin started rallying around and contributed in the way of donations of wool or getting started themselves.
Joan has been known to come home from a day out to find an anonymous bag of booties in a bag on the doorstep and so the big figured was soon being reduced stitch by stitch.
Now there is the wildest array of shoes, suitable for every little soul.
This event is very dear to The New Zealand Steel Gallery and the Knitting Grannies, not only because it is a celebration in achieving something big which will just keep getting bigger once these little shoes reach their owners but also because the art concept is contemporary, moving and thought provoking and created by arguably an unlikely source!
We would like to invite all of the secret stitch birds who dropped their booties off and those who kindly donated wool to make an appearance on Saturday and put their name on the ‘ contribution list’. A warm welcome is also extended to the public to come and see what these inspiring women have achieved.