Solo: Four Wellington Artists

This exhibition features work by four solo artists, who specialise in a variety of mediums, from graphic art, to sculpture, to abstract realism, to surrealism.

Ben Buchanan describes himself as a colourist, who generates intensely hued patterns that pulse in syncopated rhythms. The title of his work, Forever, alludes to the idea of infinity, and suggests that Buchanan’s work might reverberate out indefinitely.

Cat Auburn’s herd of deer flock in clusters around the gallery. Made from expanding foam and with the seams left showing, Auburn is not attempting to create convincing replicas or elaborate trickery. Rather, the creatures represent lightly sketched out forms, which, although simple, conjure up the lithe movements of fawns in mid-flight.

Photographer Ann Shelton’s intriguing images are of trees gifted to gold medallists at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. The works are exhibited as a series of diptychs, presented as a set of inverted doubles, a format that allows us to experience the trees as a series of abstract shapes. This process, which Shelton has termed ‘stammering’, refutes a singular narrative, hinting at the constructed and uncertain nature of history itself.

The large cast of characters that inhabit Matt Hunt’s paintings are caught between two worlds, good and evil. Hunt’s work has been described as ‘spiritual realism’ and his art evokes an ominous and prophetic stance on theology. The paintings take their source material from his eclectic interest across pop culture, science fiction, comics, the Bible and art history; along with his personal philosophies and dreams.