Artistic impressions of domestic bliss

There’s no rest for Bay of Plenty Polytechnic’s Nicol Sanders-O’Shea. As well as juggling two small children and a full-time job as programme coordinator for the Polytechnic’s popular Diploma in Art programme, Nicol is also exhibiting her latest body of work in Nelson.

The ‘Honey, I’m Home!’ exhibition, held at The Refinery Art Space, explores the surface and humorous aspects, as well as its darker and seedier side of domesticity.

Sponsored by Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT), the exhibition features work by artists from Tauranga, Nelson, Auckland and as far away as Japan. The work encompasses video, drawing, painting, music, sculpture and writing.

Dr Graeme Cornwell, the show’s curator and NMIT arts tutor and artist, says it features work by experienced and emerging artists.  “It’s a way of introducing younger artists to the network of professional artists, as well as encouraging artists from around New Zealand to show here,” he said.

Dr Cornwell said the domestic environment was an interesting place to make artwork about, because it was often idealised and presented with a veneer of respectability which could mask the reality.

Nicol has a history of working with Dr Cornwell (in a previous role at Eastern Institute of Technology) and has exhibited alongside him since 2001. This is the third exhibition in Nelson funded by NMIT research funding that she has been invited to participate in.

“I always jump at any opportunity to exhibit with other artists and to make myself create a new work, resolve it and then experience it installed in the gallery, which is always the satisfying finishing touch,” says Nicol. “It’s a great way to get feedback about your work from peers too.”

"In my work, scenes and surfaces evoke pragmatic, everyday family routines, punctuated by intimations of consumerist myth, sentiment and nostalgia, as evidence of tidily organised family life falling into pleasurable disarray. Multiples suggest repetitive overproduction of domestic images."

Other participating artists include Jules Findlay, Graeme Cornwell, Symen Hunter, Craig Agnew and Klaasz Breukel, together with artists Danny Knox, Liz Boot, Miriam Hansen, Chika Matsuda, Fi Johnstone and Nick Haig.

Honey I’m Home! opened on Monday, 24 June 2013 and runs until Saturday, 13 July 2013 at The Refinery Artspace, 3 Halifax Street, Nelson.