Artist Features
5 posts
20:00, 22 Apr
Artist Feature 001: Max Nasmith. Kirikiriroa-based sculptor Max Nasmith constructs his interactive pieces entirely from second-hand materials, everyday furniture, and lighting circuits. We discussed material interception, apprenticeships, and the need for stronger local arts infrastructure.
20:23, 29 Apr
Artist Feature 002: Isabella Fuller. Pōneke-based photographer, writer, and one half of dream-pop duo Laluna, Isabella builds dense, layered visuals through analog collage and multiple exposures. Her practice moves freely between image, sound, and poetry — each medium speaking in the same register. We discussed creative freedom, the cost of making work alongside full-time study, and the spaces Wellington is missing for young artists outside art school.
20:00, 13 May
Artist Feature 003: 心怡 / Xinyi Zhang. Tāmaki Makaurau-based ceramicist and photographer, Xinyi builds subtle, luminous objects from handbuilt clay, each one a vessel of memory, childhood, and the natural world. Her practice moves between ceramic sculpture and high-quality documentary photography, the two so closely entwined it is difficult to say where one ends and the other begins. We discussed clay as a way of touching land, the poetics of permanence and impermanence, and what emerging artists in Aotearoa need more of right now.
22:00, 28 May
Artist Feature 004: Xavier Xu. Tāmaki Makaurau-based installation and moving image artist, Xavier films the structures that shape bodies into compliance, the school gate, the factory entrance, the rhythms we stop noticing. His dual-channel installation places education and labour face to face, forcing the viewer to absorb one while the other waits behind them. We discussed the camera as a tool for revealing invisible control, the point where personal memory becomes political work, and what long-term support actually looks like for artists in Aotearoa.
10:35, 04 Jun
Artist Feature 005: mr BLœck. Kemureti-based painter, sculptor and photographer. He works under the mr BLœck pseudonym across painting, sculpture, photography and video. His expressionist work rejects minimalism through excess, distortion and colour, whilst his titles name the social frustrations most practitioners only hint at. In 2022 he opened a pop-up contemporary gallery in Cambridge representing emerging and Māori artists, and continues to build informal exhibition infrastructure across the Waikato. We discussed the tension between commercial and artistic practice, the lack of spaces for artists outside the main centres, and what it means to support other artists rather than compete with them.
