Wood meets water: te taonga o te moana a rakau / Small openings into fleeting moments

This exhibition brings together the practices of artists Katy Cottrell and Keziah McNamara who, through their individual approaches, offer viewers the opportunity to see what is out of sight - behind closed doors or beneath the surface.

Wood meets water: te taonga o te moana a rakau, by Katy Cottrell, celebrates life above and below the surface of Wellington's marine reserves and bays - a theme intrinsically Kiwi, reflecting an enduring connection with te moana, kai, taiao, and te ara wai. Cottrell's stunning series series of intricately crafted wood veneer drawings takes viewers beneath and above the waves to reflect on native flora and fauna. 

Keziah McNamara's Small openings into fleeting moments invites the viewer to interact with a series of miniature scenes from everyday life that are hidden inside little boxes. By peering through tiny holes, turning on lighting and playing with what moves there’s an opportunity to observe and perceive in different, possibly surprising ways. 

Katy Cottrell is a practising marquetrist - drawing with timber veneers - an approach dating back thousands of years. Marquetry is 2-dimensional and can be framed or is commonly rendered into furniture and creates images with warm natural earthy tones. Artworks focus on her passion for nature, celebrating the unique wild taonga of Aotearoa. She is self taught and developed her work through her Masters of Fine Art (Massey) with further development taking place via her current  creative-led practice PhD with VUW. Her works have sold across New Zealand and the UK, and she is a member of the British and American Marquetry Societies.

Keziah McNamara is an Occupational Therapist in Mental Health practice who uses creative media in her work with adolescents. Recently she’s been exploring and using some puppetry, both in her work and for her own creative development.  She participated in a residency last year on a kind of puppetry called Teatro lambe lambe that has left her full of curiosity and wonder. This is a form of miniature puppet theatre that takes place in some kind of box or contained space and comprises an intimate exchange between a puppeteer and a single viewer. The viewer peers through a secret opening and watches and hears a brief story unfold.  The pieces in the exhibition are derived from this idea of seeing something in a different way, something that is hidden, and only for one viewer at a time. It plays on interests of how things seem, and moments that make us yearn to travel back and see them again. Making these pieces has been a practical study in conceiving and creating small worlds and exploring very basic forms of movement. It is an opportunity to share a first Teatro lambe lambe and these small boxes that followed.