Room Installation. Photography credit: Stephen A’Court
Photo Credit
Room Installation. Photography credit: Stephen A’Court
Photo Credit
Kerrie Hughes, 'Pursuit' (2024) Photography credit: Stephen A’Court
Photo Credit
Kerrie Hughes, 'The nature of red' (2024) Photography credit: Stephen A’Court
Photo Credit
Bowen Galleries is delighted to present Te Whanganui a Tara artist Kerrie Hughes latest exhibition, Other.
The exhibition addresses the personal but also universal plight of all individuals who identify as a minority, who are seen as the ‘Other.
‘Ginger, Ginga, Ranga are names for the minority group I belong to. Peoples perceptions of this group, often repugnance, come out in unguarded moments.
The penny dropped when I exclaimed with excitement over my friend’s red-haired grandchild, I used to have hair like that! My earliest memories were of people doing the same to me as a child, the realisation being the last words were always, “I, [or my father, sister…] had hair that colour.
These people would come from Scottish and Irish backgrounds, we belong to, even represent this group, and the associated traits of feistiness, unruliness, wildness, and insubordination. An explosive red force. We may stand for trouble…
Due to its rarity, red hair seems significant, what does it mean? It’s subversive, travelling hidden in gene pools , breaking out unexpectedly from somewhere unseen down under. Where do you come from? Are you a changeling? Are you really one of us, an endangered species? We too have our rules of membership. We like our traits, we understand, even love oddity, nonconformity is our thing. These days we defiantly dye our hair, since it turned from fire to ash. We don’t want to give up the POWER of RED which has always defined us.
It is about the dividing line between civilisation and the non civilised – nature. Utangard, Hadrians Wall and The Pale, are examples, the latter two being walls erected to keep out the Scots and Irish. The people on the other side of the border are seen as uncivilised, as dangerous.’
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Kerrie Hughes, June 2024
Bowen Galleries is delighted to present Te Whanganui a Tara artist Kerrie Hughes latest exhibition, Other.
The exhibition addresses the personal but also universal plight of all individuals who identify as a minority, who are seen as the ‘Other.
‘Ginger, Ginga, Ranga are names for the minority group I belong to. Peoples perceptions of this group, often repugnance, come out in unguarded moments.
The penny dropped when I exclaimed with excitement over my friend’s red-haired grandchild, I used to have hair like that! My earliest memories were of people doing the same to me as a child, the realisation being the last words were always, “I, [or my father, sister…] had hair that colour.
These people would come from Scottish and Irish backgrounds, we belong to, even represent this group, and the associated traits of feistiness, unruliness, wildness, and insubordination. An explosive red force. We may stand for trouble…
Due to its rarity, red hair seems significant, what does it mean? It’s subversive, travelling hidden in gene pools , breaking out unexpectedly from somewhere unseen down under. Where do you come from? Are you a changeling? Are you really one of us, an endangered species? We too have our rules of membership. We like our traits, we understand, even love oddity, nonconformity is our thing. These days we defiantly dye our hair, since it turned from fire to ash. We don’t want to give up the POWER of RED which has always defined us.
It is about the dividing line between civilisation and the non civilised – nature. Utangard, Hadrians Wall and The Pale, are examples, the latter two being walls erected to keep out the Scots and Irish. The people on the other side of the border are seen as uncivilised, as dangerous.’
1
Kerrie Hughes, June 2024
