The Portrait and the Abacus
Contemporary Auckland-based artist Wanda Gillespie showcases the exploration of her work in wood from her 2023 art residency on Waiheke Island. Gillespie’s evocative wood carved figures wade through the muddy waters of a transcendent era guided by the sacred mathematics in nature. The exhibition brings together the artists fascination with ancient mathematic curiosities such as the abacus and counting tablets with the emotive hand carved human form. Artefacts of a moment in time, these finely crafted sculptures blend the tangible and ethereal and invite us to collectively reconsider our values as we embark on a new era of existence. My solo exhibition opened last Friday at Waiheke Art Gallery marking the end of my artist residency on the island. Waiheke Art Gallery 2 Korora Rd, Oneroa, Waiheke, Aotearoa New Zealand Open 7 days, 10 - 4pm. Exhibition runs until October 22nd
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The Ministry for Mystical Reckoning
My solo exhibition is opening next week at Stockroom - 98 Piper St, Kyneton, Victoria Australia Opening next Saturday!! 22nd of July at 6pm. All welcome :) Of a thing that could not be put back
Union Bank, Cecil Place Precinct, 235 Chapel St, Prahran, Naarm/Melbourne last days!! Open today Friday 23rd June 5 - 830pm Saturday 24th June 12 - 5pm Sunday 25th June 12 - 5pm So pleased to be part of this important exhibition with an incredible group of artists. Please go :) I have an abacus piece as well as some of my collaborative films with photographer and film maker Natasha Cantwell. Council of SVOo is an art collective considering and responding to architectural, historical and socio-political themes within site. In this investigation, the bank space will be used for a series of works delving into capitalist production, labor value and changing work practices in a climate emergency and post-Covid world. Veering between the apocalyptic and the poetic, the exhibition poses the question, “what can we make with what is left?” artists included are @julietteclaireart @wanda.gillespie @laura__woodward @annzomer @roynaemayes @natasha.cantwell @whyeatsandwiches @susannahjofoster @annique_g More images on instagram :) Waiheke Small Sculpture Prize
Waiheke Community Art Gallery last days!! on until Sunday 25th June I'm once again one of the finalists in the Waiheke Small Sculpture Prize for a 'Counting Frame for a Transient Era'. It's a really strong show this year so worth a visit. Waiheke Artist Residency
Owhanake barn, Oneroa, Waiheke Island May - August 2023 I'm currently enjoying an artist residency at the Owhanake barn on Waiheke island. The residency will run until September with a break in July. A solo exhibition of works produced will be presented at the Waiheke Community Art Gallery opening September 1st. Visitors are welcome to an open studio on Fridays between 10 and 2pm. Tel Aviv Biennale of Craft and Design
Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv Israel March - November 2023 I am excited to be part of this thoughtful exhibition alongside an incredible group of artists, designers and crafts people. 'The second biennale, titled "What Is the Measure of Man?" explores the human condition on the threshold of a new age.' A perfect fit with the exhibition premise, my abaci sculptures are positioned in the museum amongst historical artefacts and contemporary art. ' The Tel Aviv Biennale of Crafts and Design is a natural extension of the ongoing focus of MUZA, Eretz Israel Museum, on local material culture. The Biennale presents an up-to-date picture of contemporary crafts and design in Israel (and beyond), including ceramics, glass, jewelry making, textile and paper - in combination with one another. In addition to forging connections between these different fields, it engages with MUZA's historical pavilions and archaeological and ethnographic treasures. The museum's outdoor spaces will feature outdoor works including installations, sculptures, and architectural structures.' Counting Frames for an Alternative Economy
Aotearoa Art Fair March 2 - 5, 2023 A sweet sojourn for this piece from the Brick Bay Sculpture trail down to Tāmaki Makaurau for the Aotearoa Art Fair 2023. Counting Frames for a Transient Era
Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery 28 May - 16 August 2022 Counting frames for a transient era reflects on timelessness as a term of value, relating this to the distortion of time during the pandemic and the ngahere surrounding Karekare where Gillespie completed a residency in 2021. It contrasts a view of time as measurable and linear – using forms like the hourglass within the inner structure of the abaci – with the deep time of growth and evolution, of which its materials bear traces. Presented in the Te Uru window space alongside Titirangi’s main thoroughfare, Gillespie’s work offers a moment of pause amid the flow of traffic. As life otherwise resumes its old, rushed rhythms, it acts as an invitation to look beyond the present moment and its immediate desires, toward a larger system of beings and cycles in which we are immersed. An Alternative Economics
Curated by Tulleah Pearce at The Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane Five Mile Radius, Gunybi Ganambarr, Wanda Gillespie, Katie Paterson, Make or Break, Keg de Souza and Shevaun Wright 7 May - 9 July 2022 'An Alternative Economics', an exhibition that brings together a group of Australian and international artists who each use their artmaking to explore and expand on the creation of value. Guided by the idea of the circular economy and its compelling counter-narrative to the untenable model of eternal growth, each work in this exhibition offers a provocation to make us reconsider what is 'counted' in our society and why. Images: Joe Ruckli Out of Karekare Karekare house residencies 2021 17 May - 4 June 2022 @thegreyplace 37 Scanlan St, Greylynn Karekare House Charitable Trust partnered with Eden Arts Trust present 7 artists & their responses to their residency at Karekare. Heidi Brickell Louise Menzies Peata Larkin Reece King Richard Adams Tira Walsh Wanda Gillespie + jazz ensemble Nairobi Trio The residency at Karekare was a wonderful exploratory time to dream, listen to the turning of the earth and planets, while reflecting on humanity’s unprecedented moment in history.
Quite a few of my new abacus sculptures feature the hourglass as a central motif, as I further investigate methods/systems of calculating and their artefacts. During my Karekare house residency, I contemplated how the waterfall acts as a kind of natural hourglass. I dreamt of how its form could also be simplified into an abacus sculpture. The elastic and non linear nature of time and space is something I'm forever intrigued by. During walks on the beach, I experienced an illusive sense of time and space, not unlike the slowing and speeding up of time in intermittent lockdowns of that era. |
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Wanda GillespiePh +64 204 077 3144 wandagillespie@gmail.com |
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