Music and art in inspirational union

Dark to Light paintings By Martine Bijker, opens today in The Backspace at Thrive in Martinborough. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

The Kokomai Creative Festival is presenting a marriage of music and art in an event called Dark to Light at the Backspace art gallery at Thrive, Martinborough.

The exhibition, which opens today at 4.30pm, features the art of South Wairarapa's Martine Bijker, who was inspired to paint the works when listening to the Dark to Light album by composer Mike Hogan.

As part of the Kokomai Creative Festival, the music which inspired the art pieces will be played live in the gallery by Christopher Hill of the New Zealand Guitar Quartet on October 25.

Bijker, who met the album's composer on the West Coast, said the unique landscape was something they were both inspired by in their creative works. "I came to appreciate the classic guitar music that he composed from it," she said.

"I enjoy kind of the sparseness of it and the elegance of just one instrument, so when he put an album out, and it was called Dark to Light and it had these themes of Matariki, it just had a resonance with me.

"There's quite a lot of movement and expression in it."

The album's Matariki Suite follows the transition from dark to light, as days lengthen coming out of winter. The dark-to-light theme is mirrored in the artwork in the gallery.

"I started painting basically right at the time of Matariki," Bijker said. "And I finished a couple of weeks ago, which was bang on the equinox. When I was painting I'd head to work in Martinborough every day, listening to the music while I was travelling, seeing the change in the landscape and the light, feeling the land wake up.

"And it's been a long time since I've actually had my own show. It's been seven years, I think, since my last solo one, so for me, that ties in with Matariki too, with awakening and rebirth, because I'm really getting back into my painting now."

Recently Bijker has been working as the gallery co-ordinator and said she loved seeing other people's work displayed. It was nice to share her work with people who had come in and supported the gallery from the beginning.

Visit www.kokomai.co.nz for a timetable of events and for registration information.