The artist also known as Distranged Design is gearing up for a brand new solo show. Opening Friday November 6th, Belle Âme will be hosted by Victoria Street’s 013 Gallery.
The title of the show translates to ‘Beautiful Soul’ and Root explains that his new works seek to illuminate “the beauty hidden within life’s most challenging moments.” He adds that the show has also been indirectly inspired by the struggle of mental health, a cause Root has championed previously with a group exhibition, and an attempt to turn “one’s negatives into positives.” The works will feature details and meanings that may not be immediately obvious, lying hidden but always present. Root is also excited by the potential for audiences to bring an outside point of view to the works and adapt meaning to their personal experiences. Continuing a recent focus, these new works will add sculptural and three-dimensional elements to his established stencilled figurative images and stylised surfaces, creating a new direction for the young artist.
Belle Âme opens 6pm, Friday November 6th at The 013 Gallery, 123 Victoria Street, and runs until December 6th.
Urban art, and graffiti in particular, are viewed by many as masculine realms, physical, aggressive and competitive. But, the reality is that women have long had a vital role in the history of wall writing and street art, from subway graffiti writers like Lady Pink, to post-graffiti icons like Swoon, and leading members of the contemporary mural movement like Maya Hayuk. In Aotearoa, the female presence in urban art has also been notable, and Fiksate’s Perspective exhibition, opening on November 6th, brings together an array of artists to share their diverse experiences and reveal the myriad stories and pathways of women in urban art.
Organised by Fiksate owner Jenna Lynn Ingram (Jen_Heads), Perspective brings together established and emerging female artists from around New Zealand (and further afield), with a diverse range of practices, from typography-focussed graffiti writers to spoon-loving street artists, collagists, paste-up artists, photographers, videographers, traditional painters and mural artists. This diversity reveals the approach of Perspective, less concerned with an explicit historical narrative or thematic or stylistic similarities, the show primarily explores the scope of work of the collected artists, from Flox’s beautiful stencils to Kophie Su’a-Hulsbosch’s empowered portraits or Befaaany’s striking urban photography. In doing so, notions of the female urban artist are both celebrated and challenged.
Auckland artist Flox is one of the impressive line up included in Fiskate’s Perspective: Women in Urban Art Exhibition.
Local talent Kophie Su’a-Hulsbosch is part of the Christchurch contingent of the show.
Accompanying the exhibition will be a limited-edition risograph zine, produced by Jane Maloney of M/K Press, providing additional insights into each artist’s background and further highlighting their varied experiences, from the challenges they have faced to the different environments that have fostered their approaches and nurtured their talent. While more fluid and non-binary gender identities may render gender specific exhibitions less necessary in the future, Perspective is an important moment in Aotearoa urban art, a celebration of some amazing talent.
Spoon-making street artist Vez highlights the diversity of the Perspective line up.
Perspective opens 5:00pm, Friday November 6th at Fiksate Studio and Gallery, 165 Gloucester Street.
For the September recap we reached out to our pal Teeth Like Screwdrivers, sticker aficionado, purveyor of pencils and host of Slap City, a fortnightly creative collab session held at Fiksate Studio and Gallery. As a figure who has brought people together to share, make and collaborate on creative projects, it was no surprise his highlights from last month reflected the communal, from photographic projects to conscious exhibitions and, of course, the Slap City events on the road to Ōtautahi Zinefest. Take it away Teeth Like Screwdrivers…
Is it the new normal now to talk about how weird each passing month is? It is? Ok, I’ll continue, with our normal. Welcome to September 2020.
September seemed to ramp up with ‘happenings’ in Ōtautahi. Maybe it was watching what was going on up north and knowing how lucky we are down here, maybe the feeling that summer is just around the corner, but there certainly seems to be a buzz around the city and the stuff I’m interested in…
Slap City on the Road to ZineFest
The Road to Zinefest event at Fiksate Gallery brought together Slap City, Otautahi Zinefest, Ride on Super Sound, M/K Press and the Physics Room… (Photo courtesy of Otautahi Zinefest)
A regular event for me has been hosting (I turn up!) a fortnightly sticker and paste-up workshop at Fiksate Gallery. For the month of September the workshops took on a new, busier, more awesome direction when we were joined by Ōtautahi Zinefest, Ride on Super Sound, M.K Press and The Physics Room. Suitably called ‘Road to Zine Fest’ the evenings saw people trying their hand at zines, Riso printing, sticker collabs and the ever popular badge-maker. Then of course there was Zinefest itself on the 26th, which was a huge success and really great to see it happening at Tūranga smack in the middle of the city.
Green Lane Market
(Photo supplied by Teeth Like Screwdrivers)
Markets of all sorts seem to be kicking off across the city, especially markets based around sustainability, recycling and re-purposing. Green Lane has been host to some great events in the past couple of months (King of the Forest was insane) but every Saturday it opens its doors as a market. The last few weekends have been really busy and it is great to see spaces like Green Lane pop up and cater to something other than the mall shops and international brands.
Down Below Print Co.
The limited edition Down Below Print Co. X Agroe collab t-shirt. (Photo from Down Below Print Co.)
Living in Lyttelton I am pretty biased towards anything portside. Down Below Print Co. is a Lyttleton-based screen printer with strong ties to the Dunedin scene. Every month they are releasing a collab t-shirt with a different graf artist for a limited time and run. For the month of September it is Agroe, and it is a good one!
Slapped City…
Central city paste ups by Cape of Storms, Vez and Your Alright You Are.
Maybe it is that whole post lock down thing and a need to get out and about but the city seems to have been overrun with stickers and increasingly paste-ups. It has been great to see Christchurch is catching up with Dunedin with heaps of international artists getting pasted up. My particular favourites have been seeing YAYA, Vez’s spoons and more recently Cape of Storm’s tongue-in-cheek art works popping up across the city.
SDG Art Exhibition at the Milton Street Substation
Jessie Rawcliffe’s Ophelia from the SDG Art Exhibition at the Milton Street Substation.
Having been involved in the very first Conscious Club event I am always stoked to see what they get up to. Not only have they recently opened their headquarters in the Boxed Quarter but the last few days of the month saw the opening of SDG Art Exhibition at the Milton St. Substation. The exhibition showcased the work of 17 different artists, each work representing one of the 17 United Nation Sustainable Development Goals. Highlights of the show for me were the works by Jessie Rawcliffe and Lisa Ovington.
Justyn Rebecca’s Together: Apart: Lyttelton
(Photo from Together: Apart: Lyttelton website)
Right at the end of the month there was a rad show at Te Ana Marina in Lyttelton. Together: Apart: Lyttelton is a huge installation of photos taken by Justyn Rebecca of people from Lyttelton during our Lockdown. All the photos were taken through windows, for social distancing reasons, and had to be within walking distance of Justyn’s house. Marlon [Williams] played some songs, people hung out on the grass with picnics and there were kids running about, skating and on scooters.
Welcome back to normal, Christchurch.
Follow Teeth Like Screwdrivers on Insta, and become part of the Slap City family on alternating Wednesdays at Fiksate Studio and Gallery…
