Sylvia Marsters

Held Between Moments

1-29 November 

Bergman Gallery | Auckland 

3/582 Karangahape Road 

Grey Lynn, Auckland 

New Zealand 

Opening Saturday 1 November 2pm-4pm, all welcome. 

Held Between Moments presents a new body of work by Sylvia Marsters that marks a quiet yet distinct shift in her practice. Known for her luminous depictions of Cook Islands flora, Marsters now introduces human figures—captured not in detailed portraiture, but in silhouette, gesture, and stance. These figures, positioned in familiar island settings, appear as visual echoes: people walking, standing, dancing or pausing in ways that feel both ordinary and emblematic. 

The introduction of the body—subtle, restrained, and contemplative—brings a deeper spatial and emotional dimension to her compositions. These paintings do not depict specific individuals, but rather evoke a collective presence: a recognition of lived rhythms, inherited gestures, and enduring cultural poise. The works remain rooted in her connection to the Cook Islands, yet they stretch into more introspective territory, reflecting on time, distance, and the artist’s evolving sense of place. 

Flora remains a constant—frangipani, hibiscus, and gardenia rendered in vibrant colour and delicate detail—but now these forms share space with figures held in suspended motion. This convergence of subject matter creates a layered reading of memory, visibility, and continuity. 

Held Between Moments is not a departure, but an expansion—Marsters at a moment of mesmeric capture, where the familiar is made newly resonant. Through quiet shifts in tone and subject, she invites us to pause in that elusive space between presence and reflection.