Pests in the Tool Shed

The colligate relationship between material, skill and local identity is something which holds particular gravity in the object making scene. There is for good reason for this, as creative practice would be all the poorer were we limited to makers whose modus operandi is international in scope yet oblivious to the rich vein of potential inherent in local history and materials. This relationship to material is often slightly obsequious in the contemporary arts, yet a small number of New Zealand artists in recent years have managed to successfully blaze a path which blurs the line between craft and contemporary art. Whether or not intentional, it would appear that material has reasserted itself as a central factor in our understanding of many arts practitioners and two fine artists that have a foot in this particular canon are Regan Gentry and Ben Pearce.

Based in the Hawkes Bay region of New Zealand, Ben Pearce’s practice is testament to an inherited compulsion for tinkering and making. Pearce has made a name for himself though a consistent stream of exhibitions over the past few years. On exhibit have been a range of unusual sculptural objects that you would not be likely to find elsewhere. These objects are more often than not comprised of various timbers that have been crafted into smooth and sinuous forms and then skillfully combined with locally found objects and occasional small machinery components.

Pearce’s ever expanding and evolving repertoire of works is inspired by childhood and suggestive of mostly harmless cyborg-like beings that have perhaps willed themselves to life by employing the detritus and abandoned things found in a disused shed. In his 2007 window installation at Objectspace in Auckland, titled Mr Moorhouse’s Garden, the artist collated a menagerie of retro toy inspired sculptural objects.

Featuring funnel-esque wooden appendages that resembled early hearing aid devices or ‘His Masters Voice’ gramophone speakers, the objects in Mr Moorhouse’s Garden were arranged so as to advance the notion that they were communicating with one another. Pearce noted that they were “solemn and lost, yet in search of each other for cues and dialogue”. Pearce’s upcoming March 7 to May 17, 2009, exhibition at Hawkes Bay Museum and Art Gallery in Napier, Utterance, promises a selection of intriguing new works that expand upon his earlier premise.

Regan Gentry is a contemporary fine artist whose range of exhibition projects has investigated the ingenuity, DIY ethos and colonial history of New Zealand. Gentry’s 2007 series, Of Gorse, Of Course, exhibited at the New Dowse and The Sargeant Gallery, featured an exhaustive selection of works, all of which were fashioned from gorse. Imported to New Zealand during colonial times as a hedge, gorse doggedly spread its way around the country fast becoming a nationwide pest. Conceived during his four months in Invercargill as a 2006 William Hodges Artist In Residence, Of Gorse, Of Course drew attention to Gentry outside of the regular art channels as much for the variety of objects on display as the artisan skills displayed by the maker.

There is a vein of dry wit running through all of Gentry’s exhibitions, in particular with the Gorse series, which communicate particular mannerisms and gung ho nature of the antipodean lifestyle. Other recent works by Gentry have included several major public sculpture commissions as well as a 2008 exhibition for the Sargeant Gallery in Wanganui, Near Nowhere, Near Impossible, developed while he was 2007 Tylee Cottage artist in residence.

Matt Blomeley
23 January 2009

Images above by Regan Gentry (top) and Ben Pearce (Bottom)

Writing commissioned by Object
Ben Pearce website http://www.benpearce.co.nz/