First exhibition a joint local showcase

Queenstown’s newest art gallery Artbay Gallery will hold its first exhibition next week with local artists Simon Morrison-Deaker and John Shewry showcasing their work.

The joint exhibition, launching to the public, on Wednesday August 19, will give art lovers and members of the public an extensive insight into the modern contemporary style of these emerging New Zealand artists.

In addition to the 19 paintings on display throughout the exhibition, Simon and John will be painting three of the gallery’s unique ‘hanging walls’ from Tuesday morning. A mixture of mediums and forms of expression will be used to portray this including poetry, imagery and graffiti.

Throughout next week Simon and John will also collaborate on painting three pieces of art inside the gallery, providing the public with an exclusive opportunity to watch artists at work. One of these works will then be donated to Cure Kids, and the other two will be for sale.

Artbay owner Pauline Bianchi said the exhibition would reflect the artists’ passion for their home country, New Zealand.

“Both artists have managed to capture the essence of their home land through their individual expressions. The showcase will delight, intrigue and display true elements of Kiwi history,” she said.

Artbay Gallery is the new space where New Zealand contemporary and iber art meet. It officially opened in July 2009 on the first floor of the restored historic Mountaineer building in the heart of vibrant Queenstown. Artbay Gallery showcases modern, contemporary, iber, beautiful, interesting and challenging artworks by emerging and established New Zealand artists and sculptors.

ENDS

Artist background information:

Simon Morrison-Deaker

Simon Morrison-Deaker is a graduate of Fine Arts and Design from Massey and Victoria in Wellington and Multi-Media in Christchurch. Commercial experiences include film (including for Weta on LOTR), theatre and as a graphic designer for a design firm in Wellington before practicing his art full time from 2002. Simon currently exhibits in galleries nationwide.

Simon Morrison-Deaker’s art is characterised by eighty year old fruit stall stencils, bold abstracted lines and muted primary colours. He paints a new kind of landscape from Central Otago to Northland with unabashed adoration for New Zealand’s past.

Simon paints images of the construction of the country: settlement themes, railways and cultural identities from the old roads that link his work to all of us.

The abstracted landscapes in Simon’s work were the very recognisable repertoire that sold out in earlier shows in Queenstown, Auckland and other New Zealand cities.

Simon’s landscapes now combine and share exhibition spaces with his strongly composed realist images of crests, abstracted garden elements, native birds, utensils and muted wallpapers.

Works evoked from shared landscape themes further elaborate New Zealand as a colony under new rule, New Zealanders and their fabric.

John Shewry

John Shewry was born in 1977 in Taranaki. He moved around the rural areas for some time before settling in Inglewood then Okato. He left home and school very early and travelled extensively throughout the world before choosing to settle in the Wakatipu.

John formed many of his ideas from growing up in a small town and his extensive travel.

While his choice of subject is broad he does enjoy working with the historical elements of New Zealand's growth and remission.

He has been exhibiting in Queenstown, Wellington and Auckland for the past seven years working across a variety of mediums for their relevance to both concept and mood.

The works he creates are extensions of his thought/opinions and emotions. He chose to paint this particular series, so the message and influences can be taken from this form of media.

He feels art provides the opportunity to provoke and send messages that are usually too sensitive in today's world and can explore the idea and ideals far deeper in paint than in a vocal sense.

These works offer a view of a small part of his life which delivered a very strong sense of being to him. He believes we seldom take the time to look back into our history which offers a great chance to look at ourselves and find where we are and what we came from.