Marton building set for demolition to host Isabella Loudon sculptural exhibition

Isabella Loudon's work in her Marton studio.

A building set for demolition will first form part of an “unsettling, immersive” sculptural exhibition by Marton artist Isabella Loudon.

Loudon has been working on the building for two years and will open it to the public from December 8-10.

The artist, who returned home to her family in Marton in 2021 to recover from glandular fever, made the most of her access to a studio space in a vacant commercial building owned by her parents.

Since then the building has become a giant project, with each of the rooms offering her an opportunity to work with each other and the architecture.

In Wellington, Loudon’s studio was a windowless basement studio where she could easily hide, absorbed in her own world. In the Marton building, with a large street-front window, there’s been a lot of curiosity about what’s going on.

Sarjeant Gallery director Andrew Clifford said the exhibition would be worth travelling for.

“Loudon’s studio is an unsettling immersive experience – open for a tiny window in space and time before disappearing forever,” he said.

The Sarjeant’s curator and public programmes manager Greg Donson said: “There is a beautiful dance of formalism and disorder in Isabella’s practice.

“What I have enjoyed about visiting the building twice this year has been how it is difficult to see where the building’s spaces and her work end. They exist in quite a symbiotic way,” Donson said.

Loudon is a fine arts graduate of Massey University and since 2016 has been included in large group shows in Wellington at the Dowse Art Museum, Adam Art Gallery Te Pataka Toi and City Gallery Te Whare Toi.

Her primary medium has been concrete but over the past two years she has branched out into plaster, copper and discarded rubber inner tubes from cars, trucks, tractors and bikes.

For Loudon, the space a work occupies is often integral to how it is read. She makes the comparison to how her drawings occupy the space of a page.

Loudon said she liked to keep things tidy and organised in the studio but the instinctive way she works led to a certain kind of chaos.

WHAT: Loudon’s studio is in Marton, about 30 minutes from Whanganui. Visitors will be able to view the spaces upstairs and downstairs. Works occupy the walls, floors and the ceiling. There is no wheelchair access to the upper floor. Louden and Sarjeant Gallery staff will be present over the three days.

ARTIST TALK: Loudon will be in the space for the duration of the three days but will give an artist talk in conversation with a member of the Gallery’s curatorial team on Saturday and Sunday at 11.15am and 2.15pm.

WHERE AND WHEN: 214 Broadway, Marton; Friday December 8, Saturday December 9 and Sunday December 10 from 11am to 4pm.

TRANSPORT: Visitors are free to make their own way to Marton or the Sarjeant is offering a minivan shuttle service on Saturday and Sunday for $10 return.

Departing for Marton from 38 Taupō Quay 10.30am and 2pm.

Returning to Whanganui from 214 Broadway 12.30pm and 3.30pm.