News

Ben Pearce’s sculptures exist in the space in between. They are caught amidst the past and the future, aggression and instability, nature and culture. Precariousness has been a thematic thread throughout Pearce’s work...
The sculptures in Corten steel - an alloy developed to eliminate the need for painting, forming a rusty patina on exposure to weather – are monolithic, angular, minimalist and brutalist. Rather than feeling industrial, however, they feel like handwork, human, personal and individual. 
Ben Pearce's latest works exist at the intersection of fragile beauty and the confidence of brutalism. His pieces deliver both an arresting clarity and an intangible ambiguity. We spoke to Ben about his life and studio in Hastings, Hawke's Bay, and his latest sculptures.
Of the project, Ben Pearce states: "Tuki Tuki River House in Hawke's Bay underwent a significant renovation led by Architect Simon Clarkson. I feel honoured to have been invited to respond to Clarkson's vision and create The Lightness of Words, 25 part arrangement, carved from solid brass.
A unique opportunity for Hawke’s Bay-based artists was launched this year called the ARA Charitable Trust Award (Assisting Regional Artists in Hawke's Bay Heretaunga and Poverty Bay Tairawhiti). Hawke's Bay sculptor, Ben Pearce, has been selected as the inaugural artist for this significant award.

The more I work, or the more I get to know my practice, it feels like a process of both thinking backwards through past research and influences while also looking forward to new ones.

The collection of the Hawke's Bay Museums Trust, Ruawharo Tā-ū-rangi, is presented alongside the work of Billie Culy, Ben Pearce and others in an exhibition that explores human connections with the natural world. 'Nature Culture' opens at the MTG on Friday, April 1 and continues through November 20. 
The painting tends to be finished when I feel I have painted myself out of the work and it begins to speak in its own terms. The works I am making currently feel somewhat autobiographical but I aim to make them open enough through abstraction, so that the viewer can find their own way into work and form their own connection to it.
#Paper Pals Aotearoa is an homage to these small acts, and what they collectively amount to. Sitting atop of their plinths in their picture-book colours on the busy Te Papa forecourt, Ben Pearce’s origami creatures gather up in their folds of corten steel all of the gestures made in homes around the country by thousands of pairs of hands staying busy, giving due, monumental scale to all the stitching, kneading, welding, folding, fiddling that took place. 
Local artist Ben Pearce created the sculptures to lift the spirits of locals and "make people smile" after a particularly tough couple of years. Paper Pals Aotearoa is the new exhibition by artist Ben Pearce, who was awarded $50,000 as the winner of the inaugural Collin Post 'Four Plinths Project' award.
My first experience of working in the arts was at Pace Gallery in New York. Following that, I undertook a six-week curatorial residency in Vienna. To me, these experiences were on opposite ends of the spectrum; Pace is a blue-chip dealer gallery with an international presence, and Vienna’s art scene – while very alive and abundant – is relatively insular. 

To our valued gallery community, I hope you have had a rewarding year and are looking forward to a relaxing summer ahead.

Starkwhite will present Fiona Pardington’s new exhibition Tarota at Parlour Projects, Hastings. Tarota is the newest body of still lives from Dr Fiona Pardington MNZM, Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, (Ngāi Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Ngāti Kahungunu).
Parlour Projects is proud to present its final Cultivate group for the year, featuring four contemporary artists from across Aotearoa: Carmel Van Der Hoeven, Briana Jamieson, Ophelia King and Nick Herd. 
Parlour Projects and Starkwhite are proud to present this premium collaborative Cultivate group, featuring four leading contemporary artists: Rebecca Baumann, Martin Basher, Seung Yul Oh and Matt Arbuckle.
As for so many, 2020 was a year of complete upheaval for 27-year-old artist, Billie Culy. And, like so many across the globe, she turned to creativity to cope with that upheaval. Rosie Dawson-Hewes spoke to her about her physical and mental journey and the resulting body of work.‍

Parlour Projects founder Sophie Wallace established her gallery with the aim of making contemporary art more accessible. She now brings to the Hastings art scene exhibitions like New Zealand artist Emma Fitts’s In The Rough: Part II, for which she is seen here installing The Huntress with Silk and Felt.

Taking cues from Western art history and Eastern spirituality, from music and dance, painter Grace Wright wants her audience to experience the harmony of a higher plane while remaining grounded in the body. Nansi Thompson speaks to her.
Arbuckle’s practice is a process-driven exploration of place, bridging the notions of landscape with the languages of abstraction. He manipulates the fundamentals of scale, format, composition, material, colour and mark-making to produce sculptural paintings that are large, vigorous and bold in the forms they take.
Working in photography, textiles and painting, Conor Clarke (Ngāi Tahu), Emma Fitts and Oliver Perkins explore ideas of perception, both how we gain awareness through our senses, and the way in which something is interpreted or understood. The exhibition is on view from 31 October 2020 – 21 February 2021 at the Christchurch City Art Gallery, Te Puna o Waiwhetū. 
In light of COVID-19, we are closing our physical gallery space until further notice. We will continue to present a wonderful selection of stock works through our website and Instagram, and our Cultivate programmes will continue to run also. We remain available by phone, email or Instagram to answer any questions you might have...
Emma Fitts brings together disparate eras, people, art forms and ideas in her creative practice, hoping “to rewire our way of thinking, not only about history but also about our current situation”. Bronwyn Lloyd finds out more...
What kind of ‘news’ can the sun convey? The type of news we have come to expect from photography is evidential, related to its perceived truth value, but the photography in News from the Sun (City Gallery, until March 15)...
Round the corner from the city gallery you’ll find Parlour Projects, another dynamic regional dealer prepared to pick up strong emerging artists ahead of the big city galleries. Now in its fourth year, Parlour reopens on March 14 with the luscious, squiggling baroque painting of Auckland’s Grace Wright...
Hawke’s Bay sculptor Ben Pearce finds inspiration in science, psychology and history. “When I was young my mum Wendy was studying psychology and I used to read her study books. That opened my eyes to the functions of memory and made me think a lot about how my own mind worked...
Renowned for her thought-provoking pieces, which often focus on the empowerment, representation and sexuality of women, Kiwi Natasha Wright is a painter that has become a feminist icon in the art world – both here and overseas, as she’s currently based in NYC... 
Parlour Projects is pleased to present Angels and Icons, an exhibition of large scale, new works by New Zealand born New York based artist Natasha Wright...
I’m currently at the Headlands Center for the Arts, set in the Golden Gate National Park of San Fransicso. The studio space here is amazing; it feels like the size of half a basketball court and is the largest studio I’ve ever had...
My current studio, where I have been working for four years, is a room downstairs in the back of an old 1866 house we bought. I’m soon to move into a new 10sqm studio that I built myself in between shows... 
My studio is located on the 4th floor of a large industrial building in Bushwick. The best thing about the space are the large north facing windows and view of the Manhattan skyline and surrounding Brooklyn neighbourhoods... 
Diane Arbus because of the rawness and realness of her portraits. Noel McKenna because of his simple paintings of the strange and poetic in the banality of everyday...
I have an area of about 4 x 2m in a shared space in Kingsland. It’s an industrial space crudely converted into a kind of rabbit warren for artists...
As a female painter, I’m interested in the concept of physical labour and the body in painting so it was important my studio feel industrial and workshop-like...
Floral art in New Zealand has its beginnings in science. In the 18th and 19th centuries, botanical artists were crucial members of any voyage of exploration...
I am currently working in a studio space in a disused industrial building kindly made available to me by Parlour Projects...
Look up at the ceiling of sculptor Ben Pearce’s studio and you’ll see a cluster of tiny marks, made by fine steel blades sent flying from his old scroll saw...
The subject of Harry Culy’s works is an apparent contradiction. On the one hand, the sea and infinite horizon is calming. No matter what happens today or tomorrow, or even years from now, the sea and steady horizon offer a reassuring promise to always be there.
One doesn’t have to look farther than Instagram or Pinterest to know that deserted or decayed buildings are hugely popular photographic genres. The observation is not intended to undermine the impact of Corson-Scott’s works, large-scale and beautifully coloured, but to remind us of our willingness...
I want to make visible something that isn’t tangible: A fleeting moment, a feeling, the click in your mind when everything makes sense… I’m trying to visualise a kind of connectivity to the pulsating rhythms of nature, cycles, seasons… – Grace Wright   Grace Wright is...
The Auckland Art Fair saw big local and international artists like Patricia Piccinini (Aus), Jess Johnson (NZ) and Taro Shinoda (Tokyo) from established galleries sit alongside young entrepreneurial up-and-comers, all in standard-issue booths, and the combination made for a diverse and impressive spread. With more than 45...