Chris Heaphy, ‘Uptake’, 2019, acrylic on linen, 120 x 90cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland.

Chris Heaphy’s new exhibition ‘Bloom’ explores the relationship between painting and the natural world. Images appear familiar, yet somehow unfamiliar in their relationship to us the viewer and to one another. Plants or trees are placed in vases or appear to grow from silhouettes of Maori portraits or heads. Images are derived from historical portraits; mostly painted by European artists depicting Maori in a contrived style to suit an audience far from New Zealand. Perhaps it is Heaphy’s intent to claim them back and reinstate them into a cultural context from which they were taken.

Exhibition opens: 5-7pm Tuesday 19 February 2019

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