Category Archives: New Zealand Art

The Weight of the Captain’s Wrist: Paintings from the Cook, Waitangi Wallpaper & related series
Peter Ireland with an introduction by Jane Stafford & Mark Williams and an essay by Gerald Barnett

The first monograph of the New Zealand painter Peter Ireland – this book surveys his practice, on the theme of Captain Cook’s voyages to the Pacific. Ireland’s exquisite, detailed and enigmatic “history painting” is beautifully reproduced in this 100pp., spot varnished, offset reproduction, to reflect the oil on paper originals. Coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the first sustained European contact with Aotearoa New Zealand, this book features … Continue reading →

Garden of Memories: Extending quilt making traditions from around the Pacific Rim
Giles Peterson with Shona Pitt, Sheena Tavairanga, Lisa Reihana, Vea Mafile’o, Reina Sutton, Lina Pavaha Marsh, and Ken Khun.

Garden of Memories, curated by Giles Peterson, brings together heirloom and contemporary Pacific quilts from Peterson’s collection and uses these precious objects as the starting point for exploring contemporary craft and object-making by extending this traditional form into creative interpretations and new works by artists from across Asia and the Pacific.

Six quilts from Aotearoa and the Pacific are at the centre of the exhibition and this complementing publication.  Peterson’s personal connection … Continue reading →

Elizabeth Lissaman: New Zealand’s Pioneer Studio Potter 
Jane Vial and Steve Austin

With a foreword by Justine Olsen – Curator of Decorative Arts at Te Papa, and an afterword by Rick Rudd – potter and Director of the Quartz Museum.

Elizabeth Lissaman: New Zealand’s Pioneer Studio Potter traces the life and works of New Zealand’s pioneering woman studio potter. It is fully illustrated with over 100 images, especially photographed, of Lissaman’s pottery selected from private and public collections. Illustrations also include images of her designs and historical family photographs. The biography is meticulously researched and written by Jane … Continue reading →

SEEDS OF LIFE: The Bone Art of Bruce Mahalski
Craig Hilton and Bruce Mahalski
With foreword by Billie Lythberg. Ph.D

‘Seeds of Life – the Bone Art of Bruce Mahalski’ is a new book by scientist and artist, Craig Hilton. It realises the symbiotic potential of art–science collaborations with an unrelenting intensity. Both Mahalski and Hilton are interested in the ethical and philosophical implications of using biological material (living and non-living) in art to critique what they see as outdated and ‘species-dangerous’ social norms. The ethics of collecting biological material and making art with it are also … Continue reading →

DESIGN GENERATION: How Peter Haythornthwaite shaped New Zealand’s design-led enterprise
Michael Smythe
With an introduction and interview by Michael Barrett

This book tells the story of one of New Zealand’s most influential industrial designers. Spanning five decades, Design Generation documents Haythornthwaite’s career through childhood influences, education in Auckland and Illinois, work experience in California and New York, and teaching and consultant practice back in New Zealand. It chronicles his many roles as a design leader: as innovator of design, employer in private practices and his notable contribution to the wider field of design.  Vivid case studies of Haythornthwaite’s work illustrate … Continue reading →

CARBON EMPIRE
Allan McDonald

Winner New Zealand Photobook of the year award 2017.

Carbon Empire works in the space between art and documentary photography.

It combines a short series of staged photographs of a ‘man in the street’ made in 1997 with images of closed petrol stations photographed between 2003 and 2017.

Carbon Empire is a juxtaposition of these two series of photographs and a single image, made by chance in 2002.

The closed petrol stations reflect the effects of petroleum law changes across New Zealand. In 1988, the petroleum sector became deregulated, with the large international wholesalers able … Continue reading →

DYNAMO HUM

Denys Watkins
Foreword by Matt Blomeley
Essays by Anna Miles and Francis McWhannell
Conversation with Allan Smith and Denys Watkins

Published by Rim Books in association with Bath Street Arts TrustDesign by Index – Jonty Valentine

DYNAMO HUM is an artist book by Denys Watkins, featuring his paintings from 2004 to 2016.

Denys is a highly respected New Zealand contemporary artist. A long serving teacher of thirty-one years at Elam School of Fine Arts that, in 2011, he left to pursue full-time studio art practice.

Here he turns his multifaceted interests to creating a … Continue reading →

WHENUA FONUA ‘ENUA

Benjamin Work with photographs by Brendan Kitto
Interview with Benjamin Work by Giles Peterson

Published by Rim Books in association with Uxbridge Art & Culture.

Early Polynesian navigators gave names to the places they encountered as a reminder of the spiritual threshold between creation and reality. This was because they regarded the ideas of geographic and spiritual origin as mutually similar. Whenua Fonua ‘Enua explores the significance of name and place and the importance of these indicators that connect us to our past and highlight the characteristics of our present. Through new paintings and this companion publication in … Continue reading →

BARRY BRICKELL READER: SELECTED ‘WRERTINGS’, MEDITATIONS, OUTBURSTS, DECREES AND DIVERSIONS

Edited by Gregory O’Brien
Photographs by Haruhiko Sameshima
Afterword by David Craig

Published by Steele Roberts Aotearoa in association with Rim Books.

Rim Books is absolutely ecstatic to be associated with publishing this book of ‘wrertings’ by the maverick New Zealand artist Barry Brickell.

Known for his decades of pottery making and mountain railway in Coromandel, he has dedicated his life to ceaseless art-making of all kinds. Less known but perhaps more revealing of his inner workings, are his passions for writing and reading, and his life long … Continue reading →

When night comes

WHEN NIGHT COMES
Susan Jowsey, Marcus Williams

When night comes is an illustrated catalogue from an art installation by Susan Jowsey and Marcus Williams at Artspace in Auckland, 6 November –22 December, 1996
(28pp publication with colour illustrations documenting the installation produced by the artist in its wake with essays by Jowsey, Williams and Miriam Harris.)

“When Night Comes makes childhood palpable by engaging your senses. With ceilings and objects positioned at difficult heights, including a luminous yellow door of shrunken Alice IN Wonderland-like proportions. . . On the one hand the adult is addressed with items placed at … Continue reading →