Frances Hodgkins 2014
ERICA VAN ZON [b.1979 Aotearoa New Zealand]
Cotton, dacron, polycotton, clay, acrylic, gouache
Collection of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Acquired 2015 from the artist via Melanie Roger Gallery, Auckland
Frances Hodgkins was one of a series of small sculptures Erica van Zon made for the exhibition Dogwood Days (2014/15), the outcome of van Zon’s eight-week residency at the Gallery in 2014. The works in Dogwood Days were broadly divided into five themes: food and form, representing abstract notions, Dunedin scenes, daily life and personal memories, and portraits of real and fictional people. The Dunedin-born expatriate painter Frances Hodgkins became an important point of connection for van Zon, who was immersing herself in the various layers of historic and present-day Ōtepoti. Held in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki is Frances Hodgkins’ Self Portrait: Still Life (c.1935). Having never painted a traditional self-portrait, Hodgkins used a selection of her favourite objects instead, such as scarves, jewellery and belts, to represent herself. van Zon has then replicated these objects in three-dimensional form and placed them on a yellow and white striped cushion. In doing so, van Zon has further removed the content away from an immediately personal space, adding more layers to Hodgkins’ distinct approach to representation.
+Emily Hartley-Skudder
Staging Your Comeback 2020
Carpet, wall paint, oil on linen, cotton and microfibre, found light fixtures and vase, MDF, pine and aluminium trim
Courtesy of the artist and Jonathan Smart Gallery