While the World Burns

Have you ever thought, one day I'm going to do something really creative and meaningful? Fellow artists and art lovers - that day is here. If you are increasingly dismayed about everything from locally-busted water pipes to political madness to environmental education let your paintbrush express your concerns in solidarity with two artists trying to do just that.

Susanne Jungersen has decided to deconstruct historical arcitecture, playing with buildings that once seemed solid and unchanging. Now she is adding her own speculative touch as these ancient historical streets, churches and homes morph and disintegrate. Susanne is showing her first large painting, an unstretched canvas mural entitled, Sir Oligarch, featuring a foul giant who devours houses and people, as well as a portrait of her mother, an environmental activist from way back.

Michelanne Forster's series, The Seven Deadly Sins re-imagined, depict human failure as current today as it was when Pope Gregory I (the Great) named the sins in the 6th century. Influenced by the German painter, Max Beckmann, who was forced to flee Hitler's fascism, Michelanne's "sins" are tongue-in-cheek and include an additional painting of Pope Gregory's "Seaven Heavenly Virtues" failing to gain any traction.

Michelanne is also showing a portrait of her mother in old age.

 

Michelanne Forster is a playwright, author and artist. She was awarded the Buckland Prize for Literature, the Adam Foundation prize for 'Best Play by a Woman' and has two University writing fellowships.

She has worked with New Zealand composers and dancers and has taught creative writing classes all over the country.

Michaelanne gained a Master of Fine Arts from Massey University in 2022.

Susanne Jungersen has been drawing and painting in a part time capacity over several decades. Having thankfully given up her paid employment, most latterly as a principal of a College, she has returned to the activity she would rather have been doing all those years. She spends time worrying about the state of the world, as surely others are doing. 

As an anecdote she states, 'These paintings are of French buildings that have history and have had some permanence; a concept which I fear may be at risk of coming to an end. I find the buildings beautiful, set in their environments as if having grown naturally, organically. I have tried to express this through the use of colour."