• 
• 
• 
• 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History in Masterton is pleased to present ELIZABETH THOMSON – CELLULAR MEMORY,  A Survey Exhibition 1989-2017 curated by Gregory O'Brien, on display until 2 April 2018. The public is invited to the opening event on 8 December at 6pm, and to the Artist and Curator Talk on 9 December at 11am. 

Elizabeth Thomson ‘Cellular Memory’

Gregory O’Brien

The atmosphere of the planet viewed from space. The inside of a plant cell. The surface of a human body. Ocean water at various depths, sunlight radiating through it. These kinds of territories, most often associated with science, lie at the heart of Elizabeth Thomson’s art. In her works, the natural world become a site of meditation, reverie and a very personal kind of poetry.

‘Cellular Memory’ speaks of three decades spent in the studio experimenting with different media and processes, and pursuing an ever-expanding concept of what art might be.  The works in the exhibition are also shaped by extensive travels in Europe and the Americas, as well as through the Pacific and New Zealand.  Observation and direct experience of the physical world, and the making of a photographic or memory record of it, are her starting point.  It would be accurate to say that the outside world is also her studio.

Thomson’s works can soothe and seduce at the same time as they disarm and unsettle. They also play upon remembered sensations: her moth works hark back to a childhood experience of such nocturnal fliers in her Titirangi home.  Her oceanic works will strike a chord with anyone who has ever leapt into the ocean, or voyaged beyond sight of dry land.

These works are audacious and powerful and at the same time meticulously planned and executed.  Incorporating glass beading, zinc, bronze, fibreglass and wood panelling, and a variety of photographic and image-making sources, Thomson’s works are finely tuned and modulated.  They offer a view of the world which is at once molecular and planetary.  In these works, we experience both beauty and strangeness, knowing and not knowing, remembering and forgetting; life and art in accord, talking to each other and to us.

NOTES:

• 'Cellular Memory' at Aratoi Museum surveys Elizabeth Thomson's career from the late 1980s until the present.
• Art commissioned for the exhibition, numerous works created after her involvement in the 2011 'Kermadec' art project, and major works from earlier in Thomson's career.
• Some —  like The Fearless Five Hundred, a school of 500 bronze wall-mounted fish — have never been shown before in a public art space.
• The exhibition features a revised iteration of Thomson's audacious room-sized installation Waking Up Slowly, which has only been shown once before, at Auckland Art Gallery, in 1996.  
• The last survey of Thomson's work, 'My Hi-Fi My Sci-Fi', also curated by Gregory O'Brien, was held over a decade ago at City Gallery Wellington.
• An illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition, to be launched on 6 March 2018 as part of New Zealand Festival's Writers and Readers, in Wellington, with contributions from Jenny Bornholdt, Lloyd Jones and Gregory O’Brien.
• Thomson also exhibited at Aratoi in 2016 as one of nine artists in the ‘Kermadec – Lines in the Ocean’; Aratoi Museum was the final venue for the international exhibition. 
• Elizabeth Thomson & Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History wish to thank the following sponsors and supporters: Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington / The Central, Christchurch / Two Rooms, Auckland / Exhibition Services / Friends of Aratoi / Liz Stringer / Ross Steele / Trevor & Jan Farmer / Geoff Corbett & Rigg Zschokke / Resene, Masterton / Mitre 10 Mega, Masterton.
• The exhibition is proudly supported by Creative New Zealand.
• Aratoi, 12 Bruce Street, Masterton, Wairarapa, is open daily 10am - 4:30pm, entry by donation.
• The exhibition continues until 2 April 2018.
• To reserve a copy of the accompanying book ($35), contact Aratoi at 06 370 0001.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Susanna Shadbolt, Director, Aratoi Museum

Tel 06 370 0001

www.aratoi.co.nz

https://www.facebook.com/aratoimuseum/