Teaching Aids is a tongue-in-cheek celebration of the ‘flower’ as a metaphor for growth.

Morison’s use of prosaic cleaning tools such as floor mops, equipment traditionally used by women, to produce flamboyant sunflower-like sculptures is a satirical look at the traditional use of flowers as exemplary subjects for art, especially by women artists.

Their appropriateness as tests for rendering, their origins from England, their inspiration for inventive brush marks.

Along with their titles and supporting narratives, in which even the wording is deliberately ambiguous, Teaching Aids seems to be a reconciliation of Morison’s tutoring at university, with her own exhibition work.

Julia Morison hails from Pahiatua. She studied design and painting at Wellington Polytechnic and Canterbury School of Fine Arts. In 1988 Morison won the Frances Hogkins fellow and in 1990 went to Avize in Champagne as the second Moet & Chandon Fellow.