SOFT CUT

With the beginning of the Academic Year looming, I haven't had a chance to visit the Soft Cut exhibition curated by Karl Chitham at Waikato University's Calder & Lawson Gallery, but Karl has kindly sent me a few shots of the show. I'll post more images before the show ends on 16 March. The exhibitors are Elliot Collins, David Hofer, Gavin Hurley, Bronwyn Lloyd, Ruth Thomas-Edmond and Kate Woods.

I'm super happy with the way my School Journal inspired textile work looks on the gallery wall. I called it Sliding and Flying after one of the titles of the series of journals designed by Jill McDonald in the 1960s.

A cardboard 'Heap' by  Ruth Thomas Edmond in the foreground and one of her paintings in the background.

 Collages by Gavin Hurley.

 Detail of a work by Elliot Collins from his 'Vincent Chance' series

 A 'Vincent Chance' work by Elliot Collins.

Paintings by Kate Woods

Paintings by David Hofer

The exhibition, according to Karl Chitham, is concerned with 'the way individuals make meaning out of the world around them. Whether the cues are words or images, each of us interprets and connects what we perceive in very different ways,' and our perceptions are a 'complex mix of life history and relationships that come together to enhance our reading of the world around us rather than just an innocuous visual encounter.'

'Soft Cut,' Karl writes in the catalogue essay accompanying the exhibition,  is an 'experiment in the way we make meaning. It is an investigation of how images, materials and language combine to generate a response from the viewer. The title of the exhibition plays on the way we put words together but also suggests that there are multiple ways of interpreting something that appears simple and straightforward at first glance. What is a Soft Cut? Is it the way a knife slices through a cake, is it a ship making its way through the waves, or is it the lingering disappointment of an amicable breakup? The combination of these two words is not only evocative for each individual that reads them but also suggests that there is more to this simple phrase than what lies on the surface.'

ps: A review of the exhibition by Peter Dornauf has just appeared on Eye Contact.

Read it here