Aotearoa Art Fair

lsimonsart
May 3
1 min read

Attending the Aotearoa Art Fair offered valuable insight into the current state of contemporary art practices in New Zealand. The fair brought together an expansive range of artists and galleries, presenting work that spanned from installation and moving image to more traditional forms like painting, sculpture, and textile. What really stood out most was the diversity of approaches and the complexity of conversations taking place through material and form.

Presence in Absence (2024), Yuki Kihara

Presence (2024), Yuki Kihara

This work (above) particularly caught my attention. 'Presence in Absence' by Yuki Kihara, is a lenticular photograph. A lenticular photograph is a type of print that utilises a lenticular lens to create an optical illusion of motion or depth when viewed from different angles. In this work, Kihara explores colonialism and post-colonialism, depicting the passage of time. On their website, Milford Galleries states "The power of the lenticular image is in its duality. By showing two (or on this occasion, thanks to innovative techniques, three), alternating scenes we get a sense of life moving through a shifting landscape."

It is not just the figures that move and shift in these lenticular works. In 'Presence' (above) the figure remains static whereas the surrounding landscape shifts. This hints at the rotation of the world, the four seasons, and the ever-changing landscapes.