Shane Cotton : The Hanging Sky

8th Dec - 2nd March

WHEN : 8th Dec – 2nd March
WHERE : Institute of Modern Art

Since the early 1990s Shane Cotton (Ngati Rangi, Ngati Hine, Te Uri Taniwha) has been one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed painters. His works of the 1990s, with their sepia-toned landscapes and intricate inscriptions, played a pivotal part in that decade’s debates about place, belonging, and bicultural identity. In the mid 2000s, however, Cotton headed in a spectacular and unexpected new direction—skywards. Employing a sombre new palette of blue and black, he painted the first in what would become a major series of skyscapes—vast, nocturnal spaces where strange birds speed and plummet. From these spare and vertiginous beginnings, Cotton’s skyscapes have become, across the last half-decade, increasingly complex and provocative—incorporating ragged skywriting and the ghostly features of upoko tuhituhi or ‘marked heads’. Far from defusing these words and images, Cotton’s paintings keep them charged and alive, insisting that the issues they raise must be reckoned with here and now. Above all, his recent works insist that painting itself is a space of exploration and possibility—a place of leaps, freefalls and charged collisions between different orders of imagery. The Hanging Sky brings together highlights from the past half-decade alongside a body of new work made especially for the exhibition, including one vast new mural-scale painting, a spectacular suite of ‘target’ prints, and a line-up of painted baseball bats that suggest both trophies and weapons.

The Hanging Sky was curated by Justin Paton and organised by Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu in association with the IMA. Shane Cotton is represented by Michael Lett, Auckland; Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington; and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne and Sydney. The IMA will be closed 23 December 2012–14 January 2013.

Info not available

Related Posts

Ross Manning: Matter and Matrix

Ross Manning: Matter and Matrix

20230401
20230429
Sha Sarwari: Archaeology of Memory

Sha Sarwari: Archaeology of Memory

20230401
20230429
Robert Brownhall

Robert Brownhall

20230328
20230422
Morgan Allender: Soft Skin Warm Earth

Morgan Allender: Soft Skin Warm Earth

20230322
20230411
TEETERING, TITTERING, TITS UP

TEETERING, TITTERING, TITS UP

20230318
20230415
Dissolving Worlds: Tim and Mic Gruchy

Dissolving Worlds: Tim and Mic Gruchy

20230406
20230603
Miri Badger: IKKUNA

Miri Badger: IKKUNA

20230308
20230410
Easton Dunne: Main Drag

Easton Dunne: Main Drag

20230318
20230415
Jonathan Kopinski: Nervous. Solid. Nothing.

Jonathan Kopinski: Nervous. Solid. Nothing.

20230321
20230408
Rebecca Ross: Greater Sunrise

Rebecca Ross: Greater Sunrise

20230325
20230415