An Exhibition of Works by Artists from Suite

Suite Gallery of Wellington presents an exhibition of works by its Canterbury artists in a week long special show to be held at Gallery O, The Arts Centre, Christchurch 22-28th June 2010.

Artists Callum Arnold, Marie-Claire Brehaut, Roger Boyce, Simon Edwards, Wayne Youle and Michael Smither will feature in this show in which Suite looks to warmly invite its Canterbury allies to attend.  Opening with the artists will be in Tuesday 22nd June, 5pm-7pm at Gallery O, The Arts Centre, upstairs in the Boulevard Shops & galleries, by the Market Square Worcester Boulevard, Christchurch.

Masters of Fine Arts Graduate Callum Arnold challenges the traditional portrayal of our landscape as static.  As stated by David Eggleton,  "each Arnold painting seeks to lock onto some epiphany, some moment of serenity, and at the same time the unstable realism suggests fault-lines at work: the landscape juddering or blurring in response to unseen forces.

A recent BFA graduate from Canterbury School of Fine Arts Marie-Claire Brehaut

was the recipient of the 2009 Bickerton Widdowson Trust Memorial Scholarship in Fine Arts, and also the New Zealand Federation of Graduate Women Trust Award. In 2008 she was awarded the Sawtell-Turner Prize in Painting.

Roger Boyce joined the Suite stable of artists in late 2009. Boyce has enjoyed one person exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Paris, and his work is represented in the collections of numerous American Institutions such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, New York University, the University Art Museum and University of California at Berkeley. The senior lecturer in painting at Ilam at Canterbury University, Boyce's own studio practice revolves around expanding definitions of painting and delight.  
 
Strongly atmospheric, Simon Edwards' charcoal works are monochromatic interpretations of a familiar environment. As stated by the artist, "Without colour you get rid of a huge element of intuitive and emotional response. The viewer can focus on the actual landscape. The content carries more weight”. Finalist in the 1997 Cranleigh Barton Drawing Award, Edwards has exhibited regularly since 1998.  He is represented in numerous New Zealand collections including the Robert McDougall Art Gallery.  Edwards lives and works in Christchurch.
 
Wayne Youle (Ng? Puhi, Ng?ti Whakeeke, Ng?ti P?keh?) is well established as one on Aotearoa's pre-emient Maori artists.  His art practice is distincitve for its diversity and his works resonate in that sometimes edgy space where Maori and Western cultures meet or have met.  Dubbed a 'Cultural Prankster' by leading art writer Warwick Brown in Seen This Century, Youle's diverse works can be linked by one factor - his sense of humour. Youle holds a Bachelor of Design from the Wellington Polytechnic School of Design and currently lives in North Canterbury.   

Suite Gallery is also presenting work by Michael Smither, widely regarded as one of New Zealand’s leading realist painters. Born 1939 in New Plymouth, Michael Smither went on to study at the University of Auckland School of Art in 1959, where he was taught by John Weeks and Lois White. His paintings of the 1960s and 1970s record his immediate environment, from domestic still-life’s and portraits of his own family, to landscapes. All his works of this period draw on religious iconography and he also explored directly religious themes.