Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, Joy Fields installation view at Sumer Gallery, Tauranga. 2021.
Photo Credit
The show is available to view in an online viewing room here.
Sumer is pleased to present Joy Field, a suite of new large-scale drawings by Sarah Smuts-Kennedy. This exhibition is the artist’s first time showing with the gallery.
Appearing ethereal and cloud-like, the drawings with their layered gestural marks, oscillate and swirl. Whilst abstract they suggest space and form. Not landscapes, least not in the traditional sense. There is no horizon and the depth of field is shallow. And with no hard edges or boundaries—other than the paper upon which the marks reside—they do not register as interiors either. The spaces intimated are instead something more akin to a garden, or a bower; an external expanding space, but one that is at the same time cloistered, intimate and in reach.
The works are documents of a series of scripted automatic actions undertaken by the artist in her studio over the past year; expanding upon a project that she first commenced during her time as a McCahon House Artist in Residence in 2016. Following intuition and meditative practices, the works function as expressions of the artist’s desire to reveal fields of energy. Smuts- Kennedy describes them as Joy Fields: images which embody the positive joyful life-giving energy of a given moment, space or time. These works reflect her priority in balancing in the forces of syntropy and entropy, within artistic and creative endeavours, hers and also others (as within living systems, or life as a whole).
Sarah Smuts-Kennedy (b. 1966, Lower Hutt) is a dedicated artist and gardener. She works from her home studio and garden, Maunga Kereru, located just north of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her biodynamic permaculture teaching garden functions as a central axis for her research broadly. She is a MFA graduate of the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, 2012. Her works are housed in public and private collections both in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. Recent solo exhibitions include Energy in Quiescence, Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne (2019), Light Language, Te Uru, Auckland (2017), Frequency of the Earth, Artspace Aotearoa (2017), Events within Boundaries, RM, Auckland (2015–16). Her social sculptural commission For The Love of Bees (2016–ongoing) has triggered a resurgence of regenerative organic urban farms and community compost hubs across New Zealand. She continues to do visioning, environmental advocacy and educational work for this platform.
Opening Hours
- Wednesday-Friday, 10am-3pm
- Saturday, 11am-3pm
- or by appointment
Address
- 3 Waihirere Lane
- Tauranga CBD
- New Zealand
The show is available to view in an online viewing room here.
Sumer is pleased to present Joy Field, a suite of new large-scale drawings by Sarah Smuts-Kennedy. This exhibition is the artist’s first time showing with the gallery.
Appearing ethereal and cloud-like, the drawings with their layered gestural marks, oscillate and swirl. Whilst abstract they suggest space and form. Not landscapes, least not in the traditional sense. There is no horizon and the depth of field is shallow. And with no hard edges or boundaries—other than the paper upon which the marks reside—they do not register as interiors either. The spaces intimated are instead something more akin to a garden, or a bower; an external expanding space, but one that is at the same time cloistered, intimate and in reach.
The works are documents of a series of scripted automatic actions undertaken by the artist in her studio over the past year; expanding upon a project that she first commenced during her time as a McCahon House Artist in Residence in 2016. Following intuition and meditative practices, the works function as expressions of the artist’s desire to reveal fields of energy. Smuts- Kennedy describes them as Joy Fields: images which embody the positive joyful life-giving energy of a given moment, space or time. These works reflect her priority in balancing in the forces of syntropy and entropy, within artistic and creative endeavours, hers and also others (as within living systems, or life as a whole).
Sarah Smuts-Kennedy (b. 1966, Lower Hutt) is a dedicated artist and gardener. She works from her home studio and garden, Maunga Kereru, located just north of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her biodynamic permaculture teaching garden functions as a central axis for her research broadly. She is a MFA graduate of the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, 2012. Her works are housed in public and private collections both in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia. Recent solo exhibitions include Energy in Quiescence, Sophie Gannon Gallery, Melbourne (2019), Light Language, Te Uru, Auckland (2017), Frequency of the Earth, Artspace Aotearoa (2017), Events within Boundaries, RM, Auckland (2015–16). Her social sculptural commission For The Love of Bees (2016–ongoing) has triggered a resurgence of regenerative organic urban farms and community compost hubs across New Zealand. She continues to do visioning, environmental advocacy and educational work for this platform.
