On Now
This Thistle Hall Exhibition features three Wellington-based visual artists, each with a unique style and perspective on creativity: Jenny Martin, Lindsay Blakeley and Rebecca Mooney. Their friendship unites them, highlighting the importance of community support among artists, whanau, and the broader community. Together, they inspire and elevate one another.
Jenny Martin’s paintings explore profound themes and social issues through imaginative worlds and still life. Her vibrant work challenges societal ideals and surface-level beauty.
Lindsay Blakeley's painting is deeply influenced by the vibrant energy of her natural surroundings, particularly the interaction between the land and sea. She works mainly in acrylic, with some mixed media.
Rebecca Mooney’s practice has always been informed by physical engagement with the landscape, particularly through walking. She is interested in how art can make us conscious of our place in the world.
CONTACT
Instagram: @theart.of.friendship
Images
Rebecca Mooney Dancing with the Universe
Jenny Martin Closer Than You Are
Lindsay Blakely After the Rain
Up Next
Space Age is a love letter to California and a study of colour, design, architecture and light. With a collection of framed photography work from Los Angeles and Palm Springs and bold acrylic paintings inspired by mid-century design. This body of work is a peek into my inner-world, a nostalgic dreamscape that can act as a portal to the desert.
CONTACT
Website: bellafosterart.com
Instagram: @bellafoster.art
Facebook: Bella Foster Art
Images
Bella Foster, California Sober, acrylic paint
Bella Foster, Limoncello, editioned photograph, 2/20
Bella Foster, Conversation Pit, acrylic paint
I paint to celebrate the beauty around and within us - to inspire gratitude for what I don’t want to take for granted.
Gratitude is what creating art requires of me, and fosters in me, including for how miraculous our human, natural and spiritual natures are.
My practice explores techniques where I apply paint in multiple layers, with the canvas rotated for gravity to work it in different directions.
This creates texture, and an illusion of movement that can shift perspectives between two and three dimensions, especially as you walk towards the larger paintings.
The fundamental questions I am grappling with through my practice are:
- Why might we need things to appear more surreal, bold or colourful, to remember how wonderful they actually are?
- Why can surrendering control to a powerful force that we know sustains life - like gravity (or Mother Nature, or God) - be so scary?
EVENT
FREE public painting co-lab - open for the duration of the exhibition.
Anyone can add one or more brush strokes, with provided brushes and paint, to a large canvas that will start as a loose sketch or composition. A collaborative painting will emerge by the Sunday, to engage people in a creative process that values diversity, unity and connection.
CONTACT
Email: simonolsen@gmail.com
Instagram: @simonsverreolsen
#WellingtonArtist #ExpressionistPainting #GratitudeForWonder
This installation is a self-portrait made up of 100s of things found on the streets that I have walked on in my life. The start of the installation is things I collected when I was a child, mainly in Helensville (where I grew up) and the surrounding areas. This then flows into the things that I have found as an adult living in Wellington. The tail end of the piece are things that people have found on the street and given to me. The installation takes its form from the Kaipara River that runs through the centre of Helensville. I moved to Wellington 3 years ago to study Arts Management, and although I really love living here, no matter how long I stay I will never have the same connection to it that I do to Helensville.
CONTACT
Instagram: @mmmorgan.dean