PRESS RELEASE

ARTIST AND TEACHER LAURENCE BERRY RETURNS TO ASHBURTON

TE ARA O TAKITIMU/THE PATH OF TAKITIMU
Exhibition at Ashburton Art Gallery: 16 December 2004 – 30 January 2005

Since completing his residency as the Southland Art Foundation’s 2002 William Hodges Fellow, Laurence Berry has continued teaching and practicing art and lives again in Northland. This established and talented New Zealand artist’s presence will be felt again in town this summer, particularly through an impressive collection of recent work at the Ashburton Art Gallery. Following a very successful summer school of painting held at the Art Society of Ashburton earlier this year, Berry will back among us in January, preceeded by his paintings in this exhibition at the Gallery.

Te Ara O Takitimu/ The Path of Takitimu opens at the Gallery on 16 December 2004 and combines Berry’s signature style with his research into colonial histories, pre-colonial Maori history, geology and mapmaking. His brushy, expressionistic paintings show a great depth and complexity, unique to his depictions of New Zealand’s stories as told through people and the land itself. “For me these stories are like tubes of colour – they all add something to my palette. They enrich my life”

The Takitimu Mountains, located in Southland, played a major part in Berry’s Southland psyche, as did his research into Takitimu – one of the seven waka in the Great Fleet (Te hekenga nui) from Polynesia that came to NZ around 1350. It has “started me on a journey that has taken me places I had never imagined. I have learnt about this country, its peoples and myself in a way that I had never expected”

Artist’s Talk
Laurence Berry will give a floortalk on his exhibition 4.30pm, Tuesday, 25 January 2005. Admission free.

Ashburton Art Gallery has free admission and is open Tuesday to Friday 10am – 4pm, Saturday and Sunday, 1 – 4pm, closed Monday.

Christmas opening hours
During the Christmas break the Gallery will be closed 25 – 28 December 2004 and 1 – 5 January 2005.

For further information or imagery contact Amanda Gregan on (03) 308 1133 info@ashburtonartgallery.org.nz www.ashburtonartgallery.org.nz

ENDS