The Earl Street Journal 2020 is an exhibition with a considerable landscape focus, a textural conversation and important sculpture.
It includes an outstanding stained-glass work by Ralph Hotere, Winter Solstice (1988), clearly referencing the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior with the abstracted figure, bleeds and tau cross.
There are major works by Dick Frizzell, Michael Hight, Paul Dibble, Neil Dawson, Terry Stringer, Yuki Kihara, Lisa Reihana, Nigel Brown and Karl Maughan.
Michael Shepherd was the subject of a major survey at Waikato Museum in 2019. His ceaseless inventiveness is demonstrated in the mixed media marvels of Middle Earth (2016) and Parable (2016).
There are new works by Joshua Olley, Graham Fletcher, Paul Dibble, Leanne Morrison, Jenna Packer, Neil Adcock, Chris Charteris and Peata Larkin.
Peter James Smith investigates the sublime landscape and the history of scientific knowledge. Garry Currin offers a landscape in flux where the past and present advance, recede and dissolve. Neil Frazer takes us into the immensity of the alpine landscape and the power of the sea. Damien Kurth presents the assurance of still life tableaus, Natalie Guy the serenity of flattened form. Christine Cathie and John Edgar in quite different works explore the waxing and waning of internal space and colour in light. Graham Bennett, the subject of a major new June publication, bends, twists and segments space in Heavy Shadow (2013).