This is an exhibition in which earth, sea and sky are not for losing yourself in.
The three sets of work take the comforting visual language of New Zealand’s natural scenes and use montage to twist it. It is twisted into meditations on inner turmoil, into monumental displays of symmetry, and into unconvincing illusions of naturalness.
Jordyn O’Keeffe, Lara Gilks and Michael Edge-Perkins met in Wellington and share an enthusiasm for open-ended and metaphorical photography.
"I feel that the use of land in art to convey a variety of meaning has been shrinking. We do see land stating a liberal worldview of environmental care or a Māori worldview where human and land are not divided. However, we used to have McCahon setting biblical stories in New Zealand hills to counteract 1940s colonial shame at being at the wrong end of the world.
I want these pieces to be a modest opening quote mark in a conversation about how we could go to town with land imagery. I’ve used visual similes to collapse the division between natural and built structures, to collapse abstract and landscape painting, to divide land pictures from visual comfort, and to connect teenage and adult ways of looking at the world."
Michael Edge-Perkins is a Christchurch-born, Wellington-based photo artist who doesn’t let an almost indigestible concept get in the way of making an exhibition. The Hinterland is the seventh Matchbox exhibition he has been involved in, developing ideas from the landscape group show View in January 2014.
http://matchboxstudios.co.nz/blogs/exhibitions/45362689-the-hinterland
