Nicola Farquhar

Celebrated for paintings that employ a vibrant use of colour, layered and textural surfaces, and geometric forms, Nicola Farquhar is the Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s 2024 Aotearoa New Zealand Visiting Artist. Based in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Farquhar has spent time living and working in Ōtepoti Dunedin over recent months, producing a new body of work for the exhibition Stars, lands, including paintings, moving image, and a publication. The exhibition title sets up a dialogue between earth and sky and the space that exists in between. Stars, lands is concerned with this notion of space as something that exists physically and metaphorically between objects and ideas. Underpinned by the careful consideration of form, colour, materials and placement, the works create their own constellation pattern – a network of independent objects that sit in relation to one another and whose interpretation is a matter of perspective. Themes of metamorphosis and regeneration, language and storytelling, wider cosmic mysteries, geometry, planetary bodies and systems, and our relationship to the natural world are explored through paint, moving image and the written word. Stars, lands explores and celebrates the mechanics of shapes – as points of intersection and connection.

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I whakanuitia a Nicola Farquhar i āhana peita muramura ana kā tae, i kā papa tapiki, i kā papa kakano me kā āhuahaka, ā, ko ia te Rika Toi Torotoro Aotearoa 2024 ki te Whare Toi Tūmatanui o Ōtepoti. Nō Ōtautahi ia, ekari, i te noho, i te mahi a Farquhar i kā marama ko pahure ki Ōtepoti, i whakaputaina he mahika toi hou ki te whakaaturaka nei Stars, lands, tae noa atu ki āhana mahi peita, āhana kiriata, me āhana ake tāka. E whakaritea ana e te taitara he kōrero ki waeka i te whenua, i te raki me te wāhi ki waeka. E aro atu ana a Stars, lands ki te whakaaro o te ātea hai mea e tū kiko ana, e tū huahuatau ana i waeka i te kiko me te whakaaro. Hai papa ki te whakaaro rētō o te āhua, o te tae, o kā papaka me te tū o aua mea, ka waihakahia e kā mahika toi nei ō rātau ake tauira kāhui whetū – he whatuka o kā mea motuhake e noho here ana tētahi ki tētahi, e whai tikaka ana i te āhua o te tirohaka. Ko te kāhuarau me te whakarauorataka, ko te reo me te kōrero pūrākau, ko kā kōrero huna o kā whetū, ko te mātauraka āhuahaka, ko kā aoraki me kā ao e noho ai rātau, ā, ko tā tātau honoka ki te taiao kā kaupapa e āta tirohia ana i āhana mahi peita, i āhana kiriata, ā, i āhana tuhika kupu. Ka āta tirohia e Stars, lands, ka āta whakanuitia hoki te tikaka o kā āhua – hai whakawhitika, hai whakahonoka.

A Dunedin Public Art Gallery Visiting Artist Programme, supported by Creative New Zealand Toi Aotearoa. Project Partner, Dunedin School of Art.

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View a list of works — click here