Into The Wild

McLeavey Gallery is delighted to bring you Into The Wild, a group exhibition of works from four dynamic artists and makers: Octavia Cook, Zahra Killeen-Chance, Cheryl Lucas & Becky Richards.

Octavia Cook

Octavia’s ‘eye’ pieces came about after many years of making blind cameo portraits. After so many heads with no eyes, Octavia wanted to “make a show of nothing but eyes. The windows to the soul have traditionally been on lovers jewels, memento mori and good luck charms throughout history but in a more sentimental form than my beastly versions.” Of her work titled Tuatara Octavia says “I chose the Tuatara as subject not only for being ancient Taonga of Aoteaoroa but also because of its invisible (parietal) third eye, I liked the idea of this brooch becoming the wearers third eye.”

Zahra Killeen-Chance

Branches of the Body 1, 2, and 3 are a contemplation of Zahra's somatic connection to the elements of earth (driftwood), water (shell) and air (pumice). The works are an extension of her performance work The Sun Sets Beneath the Ocean where she explored her interrelation with the earth. The found objects are dislodged from their natural habitat and placed into a manufactured environment. In this way the works become a refraction of her experience of the forces of nature and sits at the intersection between the elemental power of our natural environment and the socio-cultural power of our man-made environment.

Cheryl Lucas

Cheryl’s Harder Larder was first made in 2011 and was the winner of inaugural Sculpture on the Peninsula Award. It was remade for Shaped by Schist and Scoria at the Christchurch Art Gallery in 2022. A collection of abstracted, organic, fleshy forms, hanging from hooks, the works allude visually to both animal and food forms. Born and raised in Tarras, Central Otago, Cheryl is interested in human interaction with the land and nature. Harder Larder was conceived in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake, here Cheryl reconsiders our relationship with the natural world in a period of crisis and survival. At a time when food insecurity was on the rise, as supply chains were disturbed, Cheryl is asking us to contemplate what we take for granted in this new age when technology has replaced our natural skills needed for survival.

Becky Richards

Following Becky’s recent exhibition at The Dowse Art Museum, titled Lumplandia, we are thrilled to be sharing a selection of these works here at McLeavey Gallery. Lumplandia imagined an archipelago inhabited by Becky’s clay creatures. Becky’s landforms, plants and critters transported the viewer into a fictional, unchartered world. In Into The Wild works from Lumplandia have been reunited with new works from Becky’s studio where Becky has continued to create objects visually reflective of this imaginary land, Lumplandia.