International artist June Wayne and school students share space at CAN

Hawke's Bay Photographic Society treasurer and events coordinator Mark Davey.

We have had a busy time at Creative Arts Napier (CAN) thanks to the very popular Hawke’s Bay Photographic Society annual exhibition in our Main Gallery, showing until tomorrow, Thursday, April 27. Visitors have really enjoyed the challenge to select and vote for their favourite work from the high quality and wide variety of images on display.

Creative Arts Napier is proud to announce a major international exhibition of modern artist June Wayne.

Wayne’s artistic career spans an unparalleled 70 years, her innovative lithographs, especially her constant experimentation working with the most important fine art printers in 1950′s Paris and the United States, earned her a reputation as one of the world’s most prolific and sophisticated printmakers.

This exhibition is the largest collection of Wayne’s works ever exhibited in the Southern Hemisphere and the most comprehensive display of her work worldwide in more than a decade. This exhibition will run from May 13 to June 1 and will be one not to miss.

June Wayne - The Vision.

Currently, in CAN’s workshop gallery, we have Response an exhibition of works created by the Level 3 Painters at Sacred Heart College Napier and showing until May 19. Students titled their works after the tropical storms and cyclones already through the South Pacific and the names of the ones to come. All works are for sale with the profit going directly to the financial aid needed in Hawke’s Bay at the present.

“When Cyclone Gabrielle hit, school was closed for one-and-a-half weeks. When we all returned, we all had vastly different emotional and physical responses to the event that had unfolded. As part of our processing of the cyclone, the students produced large abstract works to voice their responses,” said art teacher, Sandra Howlett.

Coming up we have artist Ken Sando bringing his new solo exhibition Bunch of Grunts to the Main Gallery from Friday, April 28 to Thursday, May 11. A practising artist for more than 35 years, Ken has exhibited nationally in solo and collective shows, he holds a degree in visual art and design and has held curatorial and project management roles in the arts sector across New Zealand.

“My art making is driven by an ongoing fascination with the construction and polemics of figurative and representational art and the perceptions of both the artist and viewer to the made image.

Sardonically, I attempt to twist the perceived accepted forms of normative constructs by introducing, through my constructed imagery, fanciful paradoxical fabrications,” Ken said.

Friends and artists Andrea Lee and Susie King are coming together to bring a collaborative exhibition Canvas & Clay’to our Small Gallery from Friday, April 28 to Thursday, May 11.

“I create figurative art in any medium available, and I have exhibited my work several times in Hawke’s Bay. Colour, form and beauty in nature, especially the human body, inspire me. My influences are chiefly Impressionists and the Pre-Raphaelites,” Susie said.

“Having worked in all mediums, I particularly enjoy acrylics for their vibrant colours. I paint because I want to capture a play of light, a fleeting angle, some mystery of shadow, or a sense of isolation or escape. I paint what I believe to be beautiful and what I know I could live with and enjoy for a long time,” Andrea said.

You are welcome to come along to celebrate the opening of Bunch of Grunts and Canvas and Clay on Friday, April 28 from 5pm.