Kirsty Lillico made national headlines in 2017 when her fantastic entry, ‘State Block’, won the prestigious Parkin Drawing Prize. But her drawing was made entirely with carpet. The resulting furore caused a massive controversy and generated lots of animated discussions.

I think Kirsty is one of the most exciting – yet ridiculously under the radar – artists working in New Zealand today. This show, her first major solo exhibition in Auckland, is a jewel box of highlights from the past 10 years. These works are tough. Beautiful. And utterly sensual, with their lolling folds and organic forms cascading down the gallery walls.

And yes, most of the works are ‘just’ made of carpet, with careful hand-drawn cuts, and a handful of fixings. Utilitarian. Domesticated. Furnished. Unfurnished. The substrate of life. (Well, until floorboards became trendy again.) But Lillico repurposes it spectacularly.

In his essay for the show, Andrew Paul Wood notes, ‘For all that Lillico’s sculptural work has a very formal, aesthetically logical structure to it, there is also an element of luxurious sprawl in the way that it unapologetically occupies space on its own terms. The indulgent tactility of it, its robustness, and its defiance of polite dimensions seems almost a provocation against the traditional white cube ethos of “do not touch”. The desire to interact with a Lillico sculpture, to touch it, is almost compulsive. The process of their existence is infinitely flexible, sometimes cool, intellectual, and aloof, at other times full of Eros, joy, and comedy. Personality writhes through the substance of it like Dr Frankenstein’s stolen lightning.’

–Scott Lawrie, Director