Shila Khatami, Black and White, 2023. Acrylic and glue on canvas 250 x 180 x 2.8cm. Courtesy: the artist and Fox Jensen McCrory, Auckland.

But never where we’re going.
They always show us where we’ve been, 
Our footprints always follow us…

AA Milne via Winnie the Pooh.

“I am intrigued by the notion of a trail of footprints leading us ahead, one step at a time, in both darkness and in light – fumbling forwards in a state of relative blindness.

I have the sense that sometimes painters operate as if in a snowstorm – seeking to secure vision out of nothingness and then offering it back to us poor souls – we who are so dependent on maps and defined coordinates – on being told where to go and what to see.

The artists in this exhibition demonstrate the leap of faith that making something demands. The works in this exhibition are neither pious nor didactic as is the fashion, rather they rely on a deeper intrinsic confidence in process and judgement, and most importantly they offer us a glimpse of what vision can be if you don’t simply rely on your eyes and set the map to one side.” – Andrew Jensen, 2023

Exhibited artists include: Shila Khatami, Hanns Kunitzberger, Coen Young, Jenny Topfer and Bill Culbert.