Archive News

Living our fantasies - 27 Nov 2009

Living our fantasies

In an ideal world, each of us would get to live out our fantasies. For many young girls this may be a combination of ballerina, Wonder Woman, a flight attendant and ultimately for some, the bride.

How much our desire to be ‘someone else’ is fuelled by popular culture and an endless search for our own identity, is a question Tracey Williams poses in her suite of work called Phantasyland, currently showing at Tauranga Art Gallery.

Phantasyland is just one of the works in the Gifted exhibition, a selection of works gifted to The Tauranga Art Gallery Trust, and on display at the Gallery until 31 January 2010.

The works in the exhibition all have a connection with the Bay of Plenty. In each case, the artist represented lived, or still resides, in the region.

Other artists in the exhibition include Robin White, Elizabeth Bailey, Trevor Pye, Mark Braunias, Edward Bullmore and Arthur Dagley.

Tauranga Art Gallery does not have an acquisitions budget but since opening in 2007 has received several gifts of works including the significant Edward Bullmore collection in 2006, followed by the Nigel Brown/Susan McLaughlin collection in 2007.