Ann Shelton: from the island
29 August to 20 September 2009
Starkwhite is pleased to present from the island by Ann
Shelton, from 29 August to 20 September 2008.
In from the island Shelton has imaged, in a hyper-real
detail and a much-exaggerated bodily scale, twenty wooden shields
that were once part of the daily recreational routine at the former
Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation Facility on Rotoroa Island in
Auckland's Hauraki Gulf. The shields were competed for by groups of
clients as part of their recovery process. The bodily scale of
these works functions as metaphor for, recuperation, and recovery
in its physical relationship to body. The shields articulate
themselves on this scale as protector, source of shelter and marker
of pride. In her work a library to scale Shelton also
focused in on objects that have a specific and connotative
relationship to a site, and in this new body of work she uses a
similar modus operandi. In simple terms these photographs allow us
to look again at objects from the archive in a new way, as a new
kind of old. In promoting a looking again, an image displaced
temporally and spatially from an object and its function, Shelton
attempts to re-make, re-present and re-enact in a sense; the object
with a new presence.
After completing a BFA at Auckland University's Elam School of
Fine Arts, Shelton graduated with an MFA from The University of
British Columbia, Vancouver. In August 2006 Shelton was awarded the
Trust Waikato Contemporary Art Award for work from her recent
project a library to scale. Her recent exhibitions
include: a library to scale, Centre for Contemporary
Photography, Melbourne, Enjoy Gallery, Wellington and the Govett
Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (2007), Starkwhite (2006).
Kiosk, Artist Space New York (2007). HIGH TIDE, Zacheta
National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland and The Contemporary Art
Centre, Vilnius, Lithuania (2006); Recovered Memory, The
Goodman Suter Contemporary Biennale, Nelson, September (2006);
Archive Fever, The Adam Art Gallery, Wellington (2006);
SATELLITE, Shanghai, China (2006); Wonder-Land, Pingyao
International Photography Festival, Pingyao, China, September.
(2006); Wonder-Land, New Zealand Photography at the
Fotografia Festival Internazionale di Roma the Project Room, Villa
Glori, Via Argentina, Rome (2006); Verbatim... revelation to
oblivion, National Library, Wellington (2006); Contemporary NZ
Photographers, Starkwhite and Pataka, Wellington, (2005);
Excerpts from A kind of sleep, Starkwhite (2005); A
Kind of Sleep, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth
(2005); Slow Release, Heide Museum of Modern Art,
Melbourne, (2002); and Bright Paradise, Auckland
Triennial, Auckland Art Gallery (2002).
Located in New Zealand on Auckland's Karangahape Road,
Starkwhite presents a programme of artists' projects, solo shows,
independently curated exhibitions and occasional forays into new
music and other interdisciplinary practices. Starkwhite also
represents artists from New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific
rim.
For further information on the exhibition, or images, please
contact the gallery.
Starkwhite
510 Karangahape Road, Auckland, New Zealand
Tel. 64 9 3070703
Monday to Friday: 11.00am to 6.00pm
Saturday: 11.00am to 5.00pm
starkwhite@starkwhite.co.nz
www.starkwhite.co.nz
