Heavy to Hold Ana Iti
Having spent 3 weeks at the Caselberg Cottage in Broad Bay and working from the Blue Oyster studio space, Summer Resident Ana Iti opens the 2016 programme with Heavy to Hold.
Heavy to Hold explores a fragment of a larger conversation that spans a great distance, that distance being the hand constructed sea wall that travels almost the entire coastline of the Otago Peninsula.
Drawn to the hand stacked honeycomb pattern seen predominately around Broad Bay, Heavy to Hold approaches some of the complexities that surround the sea wall from a visitor’s perspective. The exhibition seeks to create a balance between object and metaphor while acknowledging the sea wall as a man made drawing that embodies a fraught and mysterious part of Ōtepoti Dunedin's history.
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Since graduating from Ilam with a BFA (Sculpture) in 2012, Ana Iti (Ngāpuhi) has maintained an active studio practice in Christchurch. Ana’s current practice explores the speculative possibilities of ‘drawing’ using sculpture and installation along with physical and social architectures. Her 2014 exhibition Golden Hour at artist-run space Room Four demonstrated Ana’s progression as an emerging practitioner and both Blue Oyster and Caselberg are delighted to be supporting the her practice with this opportunity to work in Dunedin over the summer.
Critic and fellow artist Keir Leslie writes of Ana’s practice: “Ana Iti is a Christchurch based artist who has been quietly establishing a reputation as a considered, thoughtful maker of drawings. Her practice often draws on physical, scientific, or metaphysical structures as a way of ordering her work.” Read more >
Ana will be in residence at the Caselberg Cottage and working from the Blue Oyster studio space 9 – 29 January 2016 and her solo exhibition will open at Blue Oyster on Tuesday 2 February and run until Saturday 27 February 2016. This is the first of an exciting new collaboration between the two trusts, who both share an aim to support artistic production with their respective residency spaces in Dunedin.
