At just 9 years old, Eastern-Southland-based artist Paul McLachlan’s eyes were opened to the potential of art by the modernist masterpieces on display at the Guggenheim exhibition that toured to Dunedin Public Art Gallery in 1996. This profound experience ignited a lifelong passion for art, leading him to pursue a career as an artist. ‘This…
Cartoonist Sharon Murdoch finds solace from covering the daily parade of political swine by literally shrinking her subjects down to size. She explains this system when I ask how she keeps herself psychologically intact when facing a daily diet of malice, lies, bigotry and bombast from the current coalition Government. It’s been a rambling, revealing…
by Andrew Paul Wood Palmerston North-based Jordan Quinnell was born and raised in Ōpunake on the Taranaki coast, and his whakapapa is to Ngā Ruahine, Taranaki and Tūwharetoa iwi. He has a bachelor’s degree, post-graduate diploma (with Merit), and Masters of Māori Visual Art (with Distinction) through the Toioho ki Āpiti Māori Arts programme at…
At the State Hermitage Museum, people are constantly taking selfies in front of Black Square (1915). Whether or not we consider it to be a ‘correct’ way to engage with an artwork, selfie-taking is increasingly common in art museums world-wide; it’s a contemporary cultural phenomenon, with audiences typically singling out a particular ‘iconic’ work to…
By Andrew Paul Wood Michael Armstrong was born in Christchurch in 1954 and has regularly exhibited since 1969. He graduated from the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts in 1976. He lives in Timaru in South Canterbury and had a lengthy career as an art tutor at Aoraki Polytechnic, later Ara Institute. He was…
![Industrial Camouflage [The Chaos of Hope]](https://www.takahe.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/T108-cover-ruff-545x720.jpg)
By Claire Chamberlain Sefton Rani describes himself as a maker who uses paint as his material of choice to create contemporary Pacific art. Rani produces work that exists outside hackneyed tropes of palm tree-fringed sunsets or other touristic motifs, yet still holds strong connection with the art, history and spirituality of the southernmost of the…
Andrew Paul Wood writes about our takahē 105 featured artist, Maryrose Crook
