New gallery

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 22

New gallery

Two years ago the Unemployed Rights Collective had rooms in Cashel Street near the Bridge of Remembrance. Then the Blue Ladder Theatre was established using these rooms as its rehearsal area. Now, 100 litres of paint and 350 hours of labour have transformed the battered rooms into a new showcase for artists.

The Manawa Gallery opened last week, upstairs at 87 Cashel street in the City Mall. It is a large Lshaped space with natural light. “Manawa” has many meanings in Maori and throughout Polynesia. In this case its principal meaning is “heart”, with the association of courage. The policy of the Gallery is to show as much at any one time as possible. Gallery hours will be from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on week days with a late night Friday, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays. The opening exhibition at Manawa is showing some colourful and inventive work by four Ram Fine Arts students. They are

James Moore, who has three unusual painted constructions, Alistair McGowan’s large freestanding abstract painting, Shaun Murphy’s chalk pastel drawings, with some black and white photographs from his “Man-Machine* series, and Tony Chuah’s painted wood constructions. A Ram School of Fine Arts photography teacher, Larence Shustak, will show some polaroids, some of the first produced in New Zealand.

From Christchurch Polytechnic Louise Maich has produced bold and colourful painted papier-mache neck pieces and bangles. The youngest person in the show is Tanya Wilson, a student at Four Avenues who has taken unusual coloured photographs of another of the students. Gail Wright has two coloured photographs — women laughing and sunset over Christchurch and Kahukura, and Josephine Dudson has polaroids of a female nude. John Black has a wooden sculpture on exhibit. The opening show wiU run for three weeks.