Ella Sutherland, Fanfare at Work (AM), 2023. Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 100cm. Courtesy: the artist and Sumer, Auckland.

Sumer presents Still Life with Argot, an exhibition of new work by Aotearoa New Zealand-born artist Ella Sutherland. A reworking of the artist’s exhibition at Künsterhaus Bethanian which took place in July of last year, it showcases various works that were produced during her time there, as the 2023 Creative New Zealand Berlin Artist-in-residence. This exhibition is the artist’s fourth solo presentation with Sumer, and her first in the gallery’s new space in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland.

It is easy to be in the presence of Sutherland’s work, with their bold, simple, and rhythmic forms, and vibrant yet harmonious palette. However, such simplicity belies the challenge in making sense of them; in attempting to decode and correlate the labyrinthine threads of reference that the artist weaves within her works. If one looks to the origin of the word “argot”, they will see its basis in the French, as “the jargon of Paris rogues and thieves (for purposes of disguise and concealment)”. And that the artist chose to use an image of dominos to advertise her show in Berlin is something of a ludic tell. These are meant as games, or puzzles.

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