AMY POTENGER

One Thing for Certain

Railway Street Studios, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland

27th November - 10th December 2014

 

Alvie McKree, Sue Dickson, Et al, Clare Fleming, Amy Potenger, Glenn Otto, Michael Parekowhai, Megan Ritchie, Rik Wilson, John Mead, Daniel Betham, Kate van der Drift, Billy McQueen, Shelley Simpson, Chris Brady, Richard Darbyshire, Anna Langford, Robert Carter, Lorraine Henry

 

Affirmations are part and parcel of our contemporary existence. A simple yes has become an almost daily requirement in order to assert a position in response to constantly changing values, institutions, belief systems, aesthetics and intellectual choices. An affirmation of cooperative potential is found in collaboration. Whether born of necessity or preference, teaming up tests the boundaries of artistic assertion. Where does one artist's vision end and another's begin? What becomes central is the exhibition process itself; individual responses defer to the wider conversation and relationships between works become paramount.

 

One Thing For Certain is a group show featuring current and past postgraduate Elam students putting these ideas to the test. Participants mine their current individual projects to determine what aspects of their processor production might function as an affirmation in the work of another. Shared perspectives are teased out and lines are drawn, literally and figuratively, as artists respond to the concept of affirmation. Juxtaposition, overlapping, interruption and occlusion are all employed in favour of fostering a dialogue between the works themselves and between artists and audiences.

 

Hosted by Railway Street Studios - itself an example of artistic collaboration - the project takes a multi-disciplinary approach through painting, photography, sculpture, collage, and installation.