PiVOT

PiVOT brings together the work of two Te Whanganui-a-Tara- based artists, Mary Hutchinson and Carol Slappendel, in a conversation about change and transformation. Though working in different mediums, both artists have recently embraced new directions in their art practice, leaning further into abstraction and the freedom it offers. The works in this exhibition are the result of these creative pivots – dynamic, exploratory, and alive with the energy of reinvention.

Mary Hutchinson
Mary is a Pākeha mixed media and photographic artist who has diversified her art practice during the last few years from a previously formal street photography genre. She now makes stitch-embellished
colour photographs, with enhanced ambiguous or banal features in urban and/or natural environments, by adding physical ephemera. Another collection of new works is collages incorporating commonly discarded or found items, such as paper or plastic ‘rubbish’. Through juxtaposing three-dimensional texture and colour, these artworks explore themes arising from the waste we all contribute to. Mary’s current art practice continues her joyfully evolving physical journey towards abstraction.

Carol Slappendel
While Carol has painted for many years, her art has taken a more central place in her everyday life since 2024. Her recent work has also become more expressive and abstract. Inspired by remembered landscapes and the emotions they carry, she creates paintings that invite the viewer to step into her world of colour, texture and movement. Working primarily with acrylic on canvas, she explores new tools, colour palettes, and mark-making to capture the essence of place rather than its literal form. Each painting holds a sense of both familiarity and discovery – a reflection of landscapes reimagined through memory and feeling.