AUCKLAND ART FAIR
7 - 11 August 2013
Stand 2, The Cloud, Queen's Wharf

The Auckland Art Fair is a unique event showcasing contemporary art from New Zealand and Australia's leading galleries. Over four days the fair allows visitors to view and purchase works by the region's most sought-after artists. The fair began in a tent in 2005, featuring 80 artists. It has since developed into a biennial event with twice the number of artists and dozens of galleries, this year hosted in The Cloud on Queen’s Wharf, and is expected to attract 10,000 visitors.

Lorene Taurerewa’s paintings run alongside her drawing practice and examine the anxieties that lurk in the dark corners of the psyche, confronting viewers with dreamscapes that seem at once strange and eerily familiar. Her works have their parallels in the dark fairy tales that served to illustrate fears of the unknown and the unspeakable. Taurerewa is a regular exhibitor in her home base of New York and across the Tasman, and Tafelspiele, her debut solo show with Milford Galleries Dunedin, took place in June and a selection of her large charcoal works will be on display at the Pah Homestead from 24 September to 17 November.

Photographer Christine Webster continues to produce work that unsettles and challenges the viewer at the same time as drawing the eye in with lush, filmic images. A strong sense of narrative runs through her photographic series and Webster’s works raises questions about the dichotomies between observing and being observed, what is explicit and what is implied, who is object and who is subject. With photographic works in public collections in Europe, the USA and Australasia, Webster’s position as one of New Zealand’s senior photographers is further backed up by critical acclaim that spans three decades.

Currently undertaking the ISCP residency in New York that formed part of her prize package for the Paramount Wallace Art Award, Shigeyuki Kihara addresses issues of cultural, social and historical colonisation, the gendered gaze and cultural appropriation with her photographic and performance practice. This year sees Kihara’s works exhibited in Canada, Norway, Germany, the USA and Australia as well as here in New Zealand.

Paul Dibble’s sculptures combine the weightiness of bronze with graceful fluidity and subtly reveal the artist’s concerns with the interactions between mankind and the natural environment. One of the country’s pre-eminent sculptors, Dibble’s works can be seen in public and private spaces throughout New Zealand and his 2006 New Zealand Memorial occupies a prime corner in London’s Hyde Park.

Following in the tradition of 1960s Op Art practitioners such as Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely, Mervyn Williams explores the optical limits of paint as a medium. Inspired by digital imagery his paintings defy the flat surface of the canvas and pulse with imagined movement as the eye tries to encompass the dynamics of repeated line and contrasting colour.

The intriguing history of Dunedin’s Larnach family has inspired Joanna Braithwaite’s most recent works; her animal portraits suggest the secrets and scandals that can remain hidden beneath the most proper of facades. Braithwaite steers clear of sentimentality; her subjects exhibit human traits but retain their essential animal natures.

Reuben Paterson’s new tondo glitter-paintings showcase the increasing maturity of his pattern-making. Below the sparkling surfaces which recall vintage textiles, the complexities of social and familial relationships underscore Paterson’s artworks. With representation on both sides of the Tasman, Paterson’s practice is moving from strength to strength.