SOFA Gallery celebrates work of Canterbury alumnus

Published by the Communications and Development Department

29 October 2003

An exhibition of paintings by Canterbury University alumnus Shane Cotton has opened at the SOFA Gallery giving Christchurch audiences the chance to view the developing style of one of New Zealand’s leading artists.

Since graduating from Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts in 1988, Cotton has established himself as one of New Zealand's foremost painters, an artist who has contributed greatly to the cultural context and drawn attention to a number of challenging socio-political issues confronting New Zealanders today.

Curator Ewen McDonald believes it is appropriate that SOFA acknowledges graduate students from its parent institution, Canterbury’s School of Fine Arts.

The exhibition follows the recent comprehensive Shane Cotton/ Survey 1993-2003 presented by the City Gallery in Wellington.

Shane Cotton Paintings focuses on a small body of work ranging from art school days to the present and reveals how the artist slowly began to absorb and re-present important aspects of his Maori heritage but through paintings firmly rooted within contemporary western practice.

“The selection of works highlights the emergence of an investigative approach to historical events and their impact upon the present, a way of understanding through personal experience, the 'post-colonial condition' — a term considered by some cultural theorists to be pertinent to countries like New Zealand,” said Mc McDonald.

" In this small selection of work, it is evident that as well as being 'Canterbury-schooled' (a reference to the long tradition of painting and approaches to the landscape tradition that have emerged from the art school), the strong tribal links that Cotton has introduced into his work via words and images, establishes their unique, idiosyncratic quality.

" It's as if his art school training developed and honed his technical facility and critical
responses while the acknowledgement and affirmation of a powerful ancestral legacy now provides essential, ongoing sustenance.”

• Shane Cotton Paintings: SOFA Gallery, Christchurch Arts Centre, until 23 November. Gallery hours are 11am to 5pm Monday to Friday and 12noon to 4pm Saturdays and Sundays.
  

For more information contact:
Robert Hood
Manager SOFA Gallery
Christchurch Arts Centre
Christchurch
Ph 03 365 0192
Email info@sofagallery.ac.nz
Web: www.sofagallery.ac.nz