This time next week, art lovers will be flocking to Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland’s Viaduct Events Centre for one of the largest gatherings on the annual cultural calendar — the Aotearoa Art Fair. It’s always a favourite of ours for keeping abreast of new and important works by established and emerging artists represented by galleries around New Zealand and Australia.
Thinking about starting or adding to your own art collection? Here are five female artists we’re coveting for ours and believe are well worth investing in.
1. Hannah Ireland
This year, Jhana Millers Gallery is presenting a solo exhibition of paintings by Hannah Ireland (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi). Exploring contemporary concepts of portraiture, Hannah’s recent work has depicted compellingly gloomy characters, often splashed across the glass panes of found window frames as her preferred canvas. This year’s exhibition at the fair marks a new chapter for Hannah — one that dips deeper into exploring and expressing her whakapapa. Catch the artist in conversation with deputy director of local gallery Objectspace, Zoe Black, at 12:30pm on Saturday, April 20.
ABOVE Birds Flying Low by Hannah Ireland, jhanamillers.com.
2. Emma McIntyre
Tāmaki Makaurau-born painter Emma McIntyre’s star has been steadily on the rise since she completed her MFA at Elam School of Fine Arts. Now based in LA, her work is guided by intuitive processes and leans into the abstract, where fields of saturated colour interact with expressive line work. “I’m interested in a painting practice being a slippery, shifting, unnamable thing most of the time,” she says. Discover her work at the group show at Coastal Signs.
ABOVE The Error of Roses by Emma McIntyre, coastal-signs.net.
3. Zhu Ohmu
Originally from Taiwan, Zhu Ohmu is also an Elam alumni. Taking a sculptural approach, with clay as her primary medium, she seeks to emulate the process of 3D printing — the handmade mimicking the machine. From her Melbourne studio, she creates these glazed, earthenware forms as a conversation between nature, traditional crafts and new technologies. McLeavy Gallery will be showing Zhu’s work in a group presentation at the fair, and a solo show will follow in Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington in June.
ABOVE Organ Pipe Mud Dauber 15 and Organ Pipe Mud Dauber 14 by Zhu Ohmu, mcleavygallery.com.
4. Imogen Taylor
We’ve had Imogen Taylor’s work on our wishlist for a while. There’s just something about her geometrical abstraction that draws you in. Perhaps it’s the colour, applied thickly in a pleasing palette of jewel-tones, or maybe it’s the nods to Cubism, Fauvism and Russian Constructivism, interpreted in her own unique way that expresses a contemporary, feminine energy rather than the austere masculine gestures these movements have been known for in the past. Living and working in Tāmaki Makaurau, Imogen shows regularly with Michael Lett, who will also be representing her at the fair.
ABOVE Night Terrior by Imogen Taylor, michaellett.com.
5. Gaypalani Wanambi
Joining the art fair as part of a show with Tim Melville, Aboriginal artist Gaypalani Wanambi spent years working alongside her father, the renowned painter, filmmaker and curator Mr Wanambi. Following his unexpected passing in 2022, she has developed an independent practice utilising new modes of creating. The aluminium from found road signs are her canvas, incised to tell tales of the life cycle of bees, honey and stringybark blossoms, as a reflection of epic song poetry relating to the journeys of Wuyal, an ancestral honeyman. Gaypalani works at Buku-Larrŋgay Mulka Centre, an Indigenous, community-directed art space in Northeast Arnhem Land, approximately 700km east of Darwin.
ABOVE Dawurr by Gaypalani Wanambi, timmelville.com.
For more information, visit artfair.co.nz.
