Fresh Gallery Otara celebrates fourth anniversary

Fresh Gallery Otara, Manukau City Council’s gallery with a focus on contemporary Pacific art, celebrates its fourth anniversary this month.

Blood’s Thicker Than Mud, a photographic exhibition by local artist Terry Koloamatangi Klavenes, has been selected to represent the gallery’s culture and identity at this milestone.

Manukau’s first ever Pacific Arts Summit also coincides with the anniversary, with a schedule of events foregrounding the arts that are lived every day in Manukau’s Pacific communities.

Fresh Gallery Otara takes pride in programming exhibitions that have strong contextual and cultural references to the site of Otara and the local community, which is almost 70% Polynesian and 20% Maori with 40% of the community under 20 years of age. Over the gallery’s lifetime it has shown the work of over 120 artists in almost 50 exhibitions. The gallery has served as a platform from which local artists have been able to launch themselves into the next stage of their artistic career.

Terry Koloamatangi Klavenes is just one example of Manukau’s artistic excellence making an impact both nationally and internationally.

From his solo exhibition at Fresh Gallery Otara in 2007, Hybrids and Hafekasis, he went on to win the Martin Hughes Contemporary Pacific Art Award. His work was included in Urban Kainga, curated by Reuben Friend, at City Gallery Wellington’s new Deane Gallery early in 2010.

Klavenes talks of the impact the gallery has made and how “a humble little art gallery found in the heart of Otara has been instrumental in shattering many of the stereotypes connected to South Auckland art and artists. Over its short history, Fresh Gallery Otara has presented artwork that has pushed, challenged and reshaped the boundaries of our art. I’m honoured to have my work shown as part of the fourth anniversary celebrations and count myself privileged to be a part of Fresh Gallery Otara’s history.”