Sense of Wonder

Poetry renders the ordinary extraordinary, seeing the unfamiliar in the familiar. – Norman MacCaig

In her newest series, Sense of Wonder, Auckland-based artist Rachael Dewhirst takes inspiration from the wilder landscapes around New Zealand, and her work titles- Escape, Roam, Sojourn – all allude to an intrepid journey away from the urban city. In a style typical of the series, Pinnacle presents us with a stark blue and white peak that dominates the image, where rivers of white and blue paint meet before running down the length of the canvas. The mountain sits amid sections of energetic colour, bands of rhythmic stripes, brush blobs and crudely shaped yellow grasses. Likely an ode to Mount Taranaki, or another of New Zealand’s great mountains, the abstract image and gestural paint strokes convey the harsh winds and unforgiving terrains in a surreal cut-and-paste environment, perhaps drawn from a coarse memory, or a feeling conjured by the imagination and captured in paint. Text by James Anderson, for more click HERE.