KINA CELEBRATES WINNING ‘EMERGING SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS AWARD’

KINA NZ Design + Art Space of New Plymouth have been awarded the category Winner for the ‘Emerging Small and Medium Business Award’ in the 2009 Waikato/Taranaki Sustainable Business Network Awards.

The regional awards held 11th September in Hamilton, celebrate businesses that are demonstrating leadership by embracing innovation, sustainability and regenerative practices in their day-to-day operations.
The judging panel was impressed with KINA’s strong commitment to all key areas, particularly ‘future thinking’ and ‘clear policies’. They said that “sustainability is built into their whole business”, and that “they are in a wonderful position to lead and influence others by sharing their own achievements and commitment”.

Owner Rebecca Mooney says “we have been advocates of sustainability for more than 10 years (though low key), so our customers know (and we know) this isn’t a “lets leap on the bandwagon to increase our profile”. However I have recently realised through attending a Qualmark Green Workshop how important it is to be an advocate of sustainability and speak out loud”.

Regional Manager of the Sustainable Business Network’s Waikato office, Michelle Locke, is delighted with the achievements of the businesses that are going the extra mile to incorporate sustainability into their daily life.

She says that the businesses who received an award at this event, such as KINA, “are proof that a holistic approach is not only good for the environment, it’s good for the bottom line as well. These companies continually adapt and innovate to grasp the opportunities that exist even in tough economic times.”

Alongside being a winner for the Waikato/Taranaki Region, KINA is now a finalist in the National NZI Sustainable Business Network Awards, to be held in Auckland on Thursday, November 12.

A MAGPIE’S WISH

On show in the KINA gallery
11 September – 7 October 2009

KINA’s exhibition A MAGPIE’S WISH is a show about secret wishes, daydreams, treasures and trinkets explored from a female perspective. Featuring paintings by Rachael Garland (Whanganui) and ceramics by Katie Gold (Nelson), these two artists loosely play with notions of femininity in divergent ways.

Rachel Garland’s mixed media paintings are an amalgamation of the real and the imagined. Depicting scenes from her current domestic realm alongside more fantastical, dream-like imagery and symbolism, these paintings provide us with strong narratives about domestic life and motherhood.

The bird figure - particularly the Magpie - appears throughout Garland’s paintings and is laden with metaphorical and symbolic overtones. Here, Garland uses the bird as a metaphorical symbol for ‘spirit’. Magpies have also had a place in art as signalling impending good news, or as messengers of ‘hope to come’.

In contrast to Garland’s reflective, mystical paintings, Katie Gold’s ceramics are colourful blasts of energy. Using clay as a medium to make the everyday fantastic, Gold’s shoes, boots and handbags celebrate the joy of female fashion accessorising.

Gold approaches fantasy through whimsical fun in colour and subject matter. By referencing the fairytale Cinderella, Gold makes links to the magical influences behind her work. She describes her work as “a promise of romance and excitement - all little girls grow up believing the Cinderella myth that shoes can magically transform their lives”.

Both Garland and Gold’s work in A MAGPIE’S WISH play with ideas that provoke us to think about our own stories that define our real and imagined lives.

THREE YEAR’S IN THE MAKING

Renowned Taranaki artist’s Oakura Beach screen-print

With three years in the making, KINA is excited to exhibit Marianne Muggeridge’s Oakura Beach screen print.

One of the few New Zealand artists to still use traditional screen-printing methods, Marianne’s work embodies a richness and energy that is only achievable through this labour-intensive process. Painting directly onto the screen with hot-dripping this process produces a soft, painterly edge.

Each print is produced through an entirely handmade process, with small adjustments made all along the way. For this reason each print carries its own unique qualities, vibrancy and individuality.

Although currently based in Wellington, Marianne is a Taranaki artist and we are pleased to hear that she is planning to move back to the region at the end of this year.

DIOXIN MAN MAKES AN APPEARANCE AT KINA GALLERY

In addition to Graham Kirk’s exhibition SUPER HEROES IN TARANAKI & THE UK, KINA also showed a selection of images from Kirk’s ‘Dick Sargeson’ strip, which features the ‘Dioxin Man’ character (born out of a chemical spill at Ivan Watkins Dow).

Exclusive to KINA, this was the first time since the comic strip has been available for public viewing and for sale, since it was last reproduced in The New Zealand Listener in the mid 1980’s.

The Dick Sargeson story has great local significance for Taranaki residents and features many recognisable local faces, who act as characters and play out various scenarios in the story. Some of the people in this comic include local artist Wayne Morris, who plays Bruce Bildgepipe (and later becomes Dioxin Man), Barry Wiseman (who acts as ‘the boss’ for the chemical factory) and Lee Morgan (who plays a character called Lurgan – the boss’s right-hand ‘tough man’).

GRAHAM KIRK: SUPER HEROES IN TARANAKI & THE UK

Exhibited in the Kina gallery
17 July – 12 August 2009

SUPER HEROES IN TARANAKI & THE UK represented a continuation of Kirk’s Superhero theme which started in 1989 with Superman at the Hawera Water Tower.

SUPER HEROES IN TARANAKI & THE UK provided us with a collection from Kirk’s latest works featuring spectacular landscapes with the surprising appearance of well known characters into the scene. Although there was still be one of his earlier line-drawn comic character paintings on display (TinTin and Captain Haddock on New Plymouth Walkway), these new paintings marked a shift in Kirk’s work towards a concern for an illusionistic rendering of three dimensional figures. These Superheroes and Celebrity portraits have been sourced from the silver-screen rather than the comic page.

Kirk’s technical skill is impressive. His large scale works speak to us of the time and effort involved in the production of these pieces. Kirk’s approach to painting assumes both Super-realist and Pop Art overtones in his attempt to reproduce the original photograph or still frame as closely as he can, whilst seeking out iconic images of the time.

Kirk is concerned for achieving a ‘truth’ in his work. By focusing on colour, shadows and light, certain social nuances of the original time and place are encapsulated. The scale of these paintings serves to further highlight these details and perceptions that Kirk has reproduced for us.
The paintings often generate questions relating to Kirk’s decision to use comic characters or Superheroes in his landscapes. He explains that he has always been interested in “mixing the surreal within the ordinary” and avoiding producing simply “a chocolate box image”.

Kirk is not interested in directing people too far in the interpretation of his work. He states “people can bring their own things into the work”. This show was a great chance to view some of Graham Kirk’s most recent pieces and for people to create their own stories, thoughts and interpretations.

VERY MUCH SO

Exhibited in the Kina gallery
17 June – 15 July 2009

VERY MUCH SO, explored shapes seen in nature and reminded us of the experiences we have within our local environment. The exhibition featured the work of two artists who investigated natural form but approached this subject in very distinct ways.

Local artist Rebecca Mooney’s vivid paintings harnessed the energy and brilliant colour of our environment. Some of the work presented in this show marked a shift in Mooney’s work towards the use of organic outline: bold silhouettes contained her characteristic expressive strokes alluding to a notion of balance between chaos and order. These new works captured energy and movement whilst unifying calm and control. Mooney’s work is very sensual; she captures moments in time that prompt our memories and experiences of nature. The colour, layers and heavy tactile strokes suggest the way one may feel and experience the environment: the wind, the movement of shadows or even the noise of leaves rustling.

Just as Mooney’s work evokes and reminds us of sensations, Hokianga artist, Liz McAuliffe, contributed exquisite work to this show which could reference another dimension of how our environment can be experienced. By amplifying the original scale of the found object, McAuliffe’s carved and painted work invited the viewer to consider the original form more closely. The heightened scale drew us in to inspect the shape and surface of each artefact and prompted memories of our own delight and intrigue we experience when finding such objects in our natural environment, albeit of a much smaller scale. McAuliffe’s sculptural works take us beyond a purely physical interpretation, to a space where we can question our own fascination and reverence for nature.

VERY MUCH SO explored and embraced the relationships we form with nature through the clever work of two artists. Although working in very different mediums, the combination of Mooney and McAuliffe’s work provided us with unified, yet alternative views of our natural environment and the experiences we have within it.