Exhibitions draw on lottery of life

Whanganui artists Glen Hutchins and Fleur Wickes are risking fate and trying a little tenderness at Space Gallery.
PHOTO / Bevan Conley

Artists Open Studios 2019 may be over but the feeling lingers at Space Gallery this Saturday.

Fleur Wickes’ Tenderness and Glen Hutchins’ Risk Fate may seem poles apart but both exhibitions explore human responses to the unpredictability of life.

Space Gallery owner and curator Sarah Williams says Wickes has made great use of photography overlaid with pencil drawing to express vulnerability.

“Fleur has achieved some amazing 3D effects and the works express how we open ourselves up to pain but the rewards can be tenderness and kindness.”

Hutchins has used spray paint and polyurethane on canvas to express the way orderliness and structure are affected by risk, chance and chaos.

“They are two very different exhibitions that somehow work really well together,” Williams says.

She is also showing a retrospective of her own work, The Path of Things, in the third pop-up gallery at Space.

“It represents almost a decade of my work and includes pieces that I have sold.”

Williams says Space has previously held exhibitions that started the week before Open Studios but she has decided to extend to the week after this year.

“It seemed to work well because we’ve had a lot of people coming through during the past week.”

Today is the last chance to catch the three exhibitions at 66 Taupo Quay on the corner of St Hill St. Gallery hours are from 10am until 2pm.

By Liz Wylie
Whanganui Chronicle 6/4/19