Auckland Art Fair

The Auckland Art Fair was a art fair located inside the old America's cup bases. down on the waterfront near the tank farm.
It was probably the most high brow art event that I've been to they even had proper wine glasses (which you could occasionally hear breaking), cheese, and lapel pins.
I felt somewhat under dressed wearing jeans and a tshirt and a hoody.

The event was laid out so that each gallery had a small booth which to display works often with the same artists works showing up at different galleries booths.

Liam Barr had paintings which depicted children with small touristy Maori toys, they had quite a sinister quality especially "The Rescue of Miss Dorothy Hohepa" where the Maori toys had fought off the European toys. i enjoyed how the touristy toys i associate with mass produced in china toys had fought off the horrible influence of the Europeans. Saving her from losing her culture. while shes wearing Westerner clothes. I loved his painting aesthetic with detailed backgrounds forms shading and the expressions on the characters.


Linde Ivemey had large dolls adorned with bones the one I found most interesting was a large human shaped doll with rabbit ears with a small doll behind its back it was a black material covered in a material like layer of bones sewn like fishnet, the effect was really interesting and as you got closer you start to notice the spine pieces, she also had several others with one being a fine sack material human shape with a owl like head looking distraught at a decapitated Friend. it had chicken bones as fingers. Ivemeys human like forms with a animalistic element exhumed a science of playfulness and innocence but the bones suggested otherwise.


Stephen Bush painted large apocolyptic?? paintings with exuberant colours and smears like chemical spills beheaded animal head. smoke pollution. in each painting a person wearing a mask obscuring the face like a bees keeper mask, welding mask. is present, industrial type imagery clashing with fantasy. with natural all creating a blender of colours and imagery.

Callum Arnold paints what appear to mimic multiple exposures which seems to show a areas development over time, which makes the static nature of a landscape feel no longer like just a capture of a single moment of time. but showing the development of a place, it was interesting concept I've haven't been seen done in a paint medium.

A more amusing part was a photo of a kakapo a black and white portrait with a a shallow depth of field and Judith noticed how nice it was and I looked at its eye and it looked a bit wrong, so then I analysed the reflection in its eyes and concluded it was a stuffed bird, you could see the desk with black cloth on it the tripod the photographer behind the tripod, totally ruining the mystique of the image for her.


The space itself had a different feel than a gallery, It was more like Big boys Toys stacked full of art. and it was quite difficult to give ample time to all the works, we employed a method called speed art. which involved 3 passes through the space stopping and analysing anything that caught our interest.

Callum Arnold picture from Suite Gallery
Liam Barrs picture from Warwick Henderson Gallery
Stephen Bush picture from Sutton Gallery
Linde Ivemey picture from my flickr