Look slowly, see deeply: an immersive sculptural response to colour and space by one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most respected installation artists. For Pauline Rhodes, blue is a colour rich in associations, recalling the sea, the sky, our ‘blue planet’ viewed from space. It’s also a state of mind – clear, calm, reflective and melancholy. Blue Mind combines an array of materials, from kelp and cloth to stained wood and glass, that Rhodes has accumulated, salvaged and often recycled over many years and multiple projects. With an acute understanding of spatial relationships, she has transformed them into a captivating meditation on vulnerability, fluidity and impermanence.
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Born in Ōtautahi Christchurch in 1937, Rhodes lived in Wellington, Westport, Nigeria and England before returning here in 1970. Between 1972 and 1974, she completed her Diploma of Fine Arts in Sculpture at the University of Canterbury. Rhodes began her outdoor projects in the mid-1970s and has exhibited work in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally since the early 1980s. She was the first recipient of the Olivia Spencer Bower Award in 1987. Rhodes’ practice comprises two parallel, complementary aspects: ‘extensums’ – temporary sculptural placements in the outdoor environment that are set up, documented and removed within a short space of time – and ‘intensums’ – concentrated installations in response to internal architectural spaces. Though distinct, these ongoing strands feed into one another, with imagery, ideas and materials often transferred between them.
Opening Hours
- Open daily, 10am – 5pm, Wednesday, 10am – 9pm
Address
- Corner Worcester Boulevard and Montreal Street
- Ōtautahi Christchurch, 8140
Look slowly, see deeply: an immersive sculptural response to colour and space by one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most respected installation artists. For Pauline Rhodes, blue is a colour rich in associations, recalling the sea, the sky, our ‘blue planet’ viewed from space. It’s also a state of mind – clear, calm, reflective and melancholy. Blue Mind combines an array of materials, from kelp and cloth to stained wood and glass, that Rhodes has accumulated, salvaged and often recycled over many years and multiple projects. With an acute understanding of spatial relationships, she has transformed them into a captivating meditation on vulnerability, fluidity and impermanence.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Born in Ōtautahi Christchurch in 1937, Rhodes lived in Wellington, Westport, Nigeria and England before returning here in 1970. Between 1972 and 1974, she completed her Diploma of Fine Arts in Sculpture at the University of Canterbury. Rhodes began her outdoor projects in the mid-1970s and has exhibited work in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally since the early 1980s. She was the first recipient of the Olivia Spencer Bower Award in 1987. Rhodes’ practice comprises two parallel, complementary aspects: ‘extensums’ – temporary sculptural placements in the outdoor environment that are set up, documented and removed within a short space of time – and ‘intensums’ – concentrated installations in response to internal architectural spaces. Though distinct, these ongoing strands feed into one another, with imagery, ideas and materials often transferred between them.
