Wendy Pettersen - What if?

The Team from Depot Artspace

Today we are sad to say goodbye to Greer Twiss’ delicate albatross maquettes, though Wendy Pettersen’s exhibition What If? remains on view in the newly established Street Front Gallery.

Pettersen’s canvases are populated by shorebirds—from Kuaka (Bar-tailed Godwits), to Kotuku-ngatupapa (Royal Spoonbills)—placed deftly against painterly, abstracted seascapes and wetlands. The artist’s mastery of uncanny perspective and fluid brushstrokes animate the canvas in a manner that deserves to be viewed in person.

In the words of Pettersen: ‘What If? presents a counter narrative to the early colonial paintings by artists such as Augustus Earle, Fox, and Heaphy. They are filled with natural activity and an abundance of birds and mammals that would have once inhabited the environment, rather than landscapes presenting opportunity for unlimited human activity.’

It has been serendipitous to have the work of Twiss and Pettersen overlap, allowing for different perspectives of conservation to interact between the two gallery spaces. Thank you to those who joined us on Saturday for Dr. Marie-Louise Ward’s talk and the opening of Wendy Pettersen – What If?

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