Open daily, 10am-4pm

42-44 Devonport Road, Tauranga

Otherworld 
23 April - 14 August 2016

Explore some of the surreal and mysterious lands of Otherworld. Featuring the work of Alex McLeod (Canada), Mark Rodda (Australia) and Peter Madden (New Zealand) the exhibition features a collection of constructed realms. Each work suggests a playful fantasyland that hints at something a little darker just below the surface.

 

Mark Rodda, The Fugitive, 2015. Courtesy of Sanderson Contemporary

In his paintings Mark Rodda will often stage fabricated narrative's that sit within imagened, timeless worlds. His landscapes feature a cast of curious characters and reference Persian, Chinese and pre-modern western painting traditions.

The exhibition features a selection of recent works that combine dream-like landscapes with unusual ‘natural’ features and eccentric structures that appear to come straight out of storybooks.

Previously uninhabited, Rodda’s paintings have recently been populated by a quirky collection of animals, people and creatures.

Peter Madden, The Last City, 2010 (detail). Courtesy of the artist. Photograph: Sam Hartnett

Alex McLeod builds animated digital environments that pulse, swing and oscillate. Presenting a new work called Midnight Realm (2016), McLeod has created a morphing landscape that emerges from the background, revealing strange trees, unusual rock formations and curious structures.

Known for his use of innovative digital technologies and media, McLeod also presents a distinctly Canadian approach to his home country’s idealised landscapes and limitless horizons. Trained as a painter and previously working almost exclusively in still imagery, he has in recent years explored the potential of animation.

For Otherworld Peter Madden presents The Last City (2010), a metropolis on a miniature scale with skyscrapers, billboards and a menagerie of creatures.  

Madden sometimes describes his practice as ‘sculptography’ – a combination of found photography found in used books, magazines and encyclopedias, expertly manipulated into 3-dimensional forms.

He often uses the much loved and often discarded National Geographic magazines and describes them as “washed up in second-hand stores and the digital pages of Trade Me these treasures contain fantastic stories of lost civilisations and exotic butterflies that smell like orchids once dead.”

"The exhibition features a selection of recent works that combine dream-like landscapes with unusual ‘natural’ features and eccentric structures that appear to come straight out of storybooks."

Principal Funder

Annual Strategic Partners