Follow the White Rabbit: at Artspace

By HANNA SCOTT

Always the biggest Artspace opening of the year, the "new artists" show can be relied on to pull a crowd. This year Artspace director Tobias Berger has cast the net wide with 15 artists from art schools around the country. True to his word to make Artspace more accessible to emerging artists and students, Berger has gone so far as to include a second-year painting student from Unitec.

The exhibition asks the question: "Where do you go after school, which direction do you take - an artistic, experimental route or a commercial direction?"

Says Berger, "It's an interesting question for a young artist show, and this exhibition is very student-oriented. Previous new artist shows at Artspace have included artists who are trying to be very professional, and this show is deliberately a bit more experimental and younger and taking chances."

Picking up the threads from Wonderland, the previous show, Follow the White Rabbit invites the audience to follow the white rabbit character from Alice In Wonderland. The metaphor is extended in at least two ways, with a looking glass in the exhibition as part of Amber Louise Magon's work and on entering the exhibition, which is like travelling to a foreign country.

The entrance is a tent of colour-coded saris, peggy square blankets and scarves, called Butti World, by art duo the Butti Fairys (Zoe Hainge and Yani Ferens).

Their work creates a buffer zone from the harsh realities of the outside world and an introduction to the fantasy environment within the gallery. "The personal fantasy world aspect of the show is another point of difference to previous Artspace shows, which have been more conceptual shows," says Berger.

He also used that idea of choosing between two paths as a theme to select the artists, and the result is an experimental approach. "Half of the students have done bigger installations than they usually do," he argues, "and another risky component is that a lot of students are not secure, finished artists yet, they're still in development."

The White Rabbit registers a pop culture tone, echoing the choice Neo makes in The Matrix, "You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe what you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes ... "

For the artists, it was a challenge to work in a big space: "It's quite a crowded show, but it still gives them an opportunity to develop themselves, on bigger projects than they normally have the chance to do."

Misery is one artist who embraces a commercial and streetwise sensibility, showing for the first time in a public gallery. "Her smiley, comic style characters can be quite dark, and her subculture images are really famous on K' Rd. She was the perfect artist to make the promotional sticker for the show," says Berger.

Joanna Langford's elaborate diorama with electric light bulbs to simulate the sun is perhaps the most complex of the fantasy-land works. Using clock mechanisms mounted on long sticks of timber, her work is a world-within-a-world.

Iain Cheesman's two works are narrative-based, with stories about taking tea with the queen. Sketched in the gallery with props, like a theatre set, Cheesman uses souvenir teaspoons from the "Edinburgh of the South" and the Country Women's Institute to set the scene. Naturally, there's an overtone from Alice in Wonderland of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

The show also includes Gary Burkon, Marina Cains, Ryan Chadfield, Chris Hargreaves, Kate Harsant, Peter Madden, Mia Ou, Zina Swanson, and T van Dammen.

Exhibition:

* What: Follow the White Rabbit

* Where & when: Artspace to October 11