a gallery presents

In late 2019 two Auckland based photographers and a Dunedin based sculptor travelled to New York. What they didn’t realise at the time, was that within mere months the world would be ‘locked down’ due to a global pandemic. This exhibition showcases a snapshot of the artists time spent in a country that many of us no longer have access to.

Petra Leary is an Auckland based photographer. She has an innate design sensibility, reflected in her unique process all the way from conception to post-production. An intrepid world traveller often hunting out unusual landscapes, manipulating and accentuating colours in post-production to create her final work.

Jay Hutchinson is a Dunedin based artist who works with textiles. His practice follows a pychogeographical model where he recreates found structures and objects with fabric and thread. His work explores urban erosion and the waste and decay of capitalism.

Tim Deynzer (Tim D) is an Auckland based photographer. Driven by an obsession with capturing the perfect moment on film, his practice is based on documenting endless changing urban environments and the characters within them.

JAY Hutchinson’s current exhibition at Olga is the most conceptually rigorous by the artist that I have personally seen to date. It also represents a departure of sorts from the gallery’s regular programming, and pushes against the expectations of dealer gallery exhibitions more generally — in this corner of the world at least. These prefatory remarks are, of course, consistent with conceptual art projects in the sense that they often require more contextual foregrounding to assist viewers not familiar with the artist’s work. This contextualisation itself can be problematic from the perspective of the viewer who may want to approach the exhibition without an “explanation” (there will be those who have this experience), and from the position of the reviewer, who can be similarly wary of providing information in a way that may undercut the apparent inscrutability of the exhibition. The issue here is: how much to give away?

Notice, if you will, the trails of red brick dust that have plumed down from the masonry screws on the white wall and have caught on remnants of filler from previous exhibitions. Look at the arrangement of screws and nails themselves. Refer to the title: is this what the city looked like in May? Are the upright ladder and the rubbish on the floor part of the exhibition? Has the artist worked with rubbish in the past? Is that a rubbish bag in the corner?

This exhibition is based on the enduring concept of friendship, community and inclusion. A chance to remember and celebrate the lives of two good friends,Ray Yallop (b.1934, d.2010) and Des Smith (b.1920 d.2009). The Exhibition is a salon installation in the style of their residence in Grant Street, Dunedin, New Zealand. Cluttered artworks of all kinds would vanish into a tapestry of colour, an endless sea of style, medium and form. Historical oil paintings would sit alongside bright coloured sketches, framed-photographs and quirky sculptures either given by the artists, purchased from local galleries or just picked up at bargain prices from local fairs. The collection represented an endless expanding community of artists that would meet at ‘Des and Ray’s Place’ at least once a year for unveilings of new works, birthday celebrations and even a wedding. It was a place that felt like home, where all were always welcome, and accepted for who they were.

The exhibition includes artwork by those that knew Des and Ray and those that possibly would have…don’t forget to sign the book

A joint a gallery presents and Olga project

15 years of putting up stickers, paste-ups and stencils in Wellington, New York and Dunedin, collated into a limited edition 39 page publication. Hand-cut cover, spray painted pages, risograph duo tones and photographs of the art of the mouse, with a Foreword by UNIT DWT. limited edition of 50 stamped and numbered. Each copy is hand printed and bound by Point Design. Rise of the Mouse is a joint publication by agallerypresents.com and GU produced on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name #riseofthemouse #pasteup #slapstickers #dunedin #newyorkcity #wellington #destroywithtalent

RISE OF THE MOUSE (exhibition)

Is a collaborative project between Dunedin Artist DZNE and Auckland Designer/Skater Alistair Wasywich. Brought together with a shared passion for 1980s skateboard graphics and design. Alistair built and shaped five decks based on classic shapes and shipped them down to Dunedin to be painted by DZNE. Inspired by Powell Peralta and Santa Cruz skateboard designs DZNE created his own versions of the skateboards he had collected as a kid ‘Mike McGill’, ‘Tony Hawk’, ‘Natas Kaupas’ and the iconic ‘Powell Peralta Ripper’

RISE OF THE MOUSE (Publication)

15 years of putting up stickers, paste-ups and stencils collated into a limited edition publication. Hand cut cover, spray painted pages, risographs and photographs of the art of the Mouse. Limited edition of 50 stamped and numbered. Each copy is hand printed and bound by point printing. A joint publication by agallerypresents.com and GU

Extended label for the exhibition written by Curator Karl Chitham

Hutchinson is currently based in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Although originally a graffiti writer using spray cans as his tools, in 2006 he worked on a project for Blue Oyster Gallery that was to signal a shift in his practice. Called Concrete to Textile for the exhibition Hutchinson painstakingly embroidered a series of graffitied panels. Since then he has developed an approach that he refers to as pyschogeography where he explores urban environments, particularly the street on his journey to and from work. He then recreates the found structures and discarded objects he encounters as hand-embroidered sculptures.

He describes the process of collecting and recreating these objects as a way of tracing time and getting to know his immediate environment. He documents the sites he collects from, drawn to and highlighting the spaces people choose not to see, such as the pie wrapper caught under a rusting section of wire fence you see here. In 2019 he travelled to New York, extending his project to the suburb he was based in.

“Three of these works are part of the ‘Far from home’ series and are based on trash I picked up in Williamsburg, a suburb in Brooklyn, New York. They were found within a kilometre radius of where I was staying. Each morning I would spend an hour wandering around the neighbourhood photographing and collecting discarded ephemera, to reproduce as hand-embroidered objects when I got back to New Zealand.”