loveliness extreme

Sentimentality is a word which not only describes feelings of tenderness, sadness or nostalgia but suggests an excess of these feelings – an overindulgence in their affect. 

Formed around and within artist Charlotte Drayton’s large-scale architectural work, Held Past Close (2017), this exhibition considers the processes and politics by which spaces, symbols and patterns are able to evoke sentimental feelings. The problem of aesthetic value is brought to the fore, visualised and tested through architectural forms in the works of Drayton and Peter Siddell. These explorations are continued in the abstract marks and materiality of Kim Pieters’ sensuous painting, in Andrew Barber’s familiarly-patterned canvases, and finally through two vastly different treatments of the immaterial symbol of the rose in the works of L. Budd and Matthew Smith. 

Placed within Drayton’s space, works from the Gallery collection may be considered anew as we are invited to question the ways in which our personal tastes and reactions are culturally produced. Dealing in subtle gestures and clear clichés, Loveliness extreme seeks to reveal sentimentality where it is hidden in plain sight, illuminating the power of these feelings and their potential to hold sway.

Download the exhibition guide

Loveliness extreme was curated by Lucinda Bennett, Dunedin Public Art Gallery 2017 Creative New Zealand Curatorial Intern of Contemporary Art.