Red Room and Gold Rush!

Red and gold herald spring at TheNewDowse.
22 August - 22 November

Gold Rush! celebrates a decade of TheNewDowse Gold Awards and showcases the five winners of this unique biennial award. Inspired by everything from domestic drudgery to Meccano and the unique flora of the South Island, each work demonstrates the stunning properties of gold -the ultimate in precious metals. The exhibition will open on 22 August with the first four winning works by Pauline Bern, Joanna Campbell, Kirsten Haydon and Lynn Kelly. Areta Wilkinson’s 2009 award winning design, Black Beech & Honeydew will join them in September straight from the jeweller’s workshop.

Keeping with the botanical theme, and once again paying homage to the beautiful flora of the South Island, is Bruce Dehnert’s wonderfully obsessive Red Room. Comprising 246 ceramic flowers growing wildly at all angles from the gallery wall, the work was conjured in a hot mineral pool, after a very long slog up the Copeland track near Mount Cook. Dehnert, a visiting American who taught ceramics at the Otago Polytechnic , recalls:

“Towards the end of the day the clouds opened up and it began to snow heavily and unexpectedly. I remember looking at some blossoms nearby. They appeared to be of a tropical origin and were strikingly beautiful under a growing mantle of fresh snow. The entire scene seemed to be surreal, ironic, contradictory and quintessentially New Zealand.”

Bruce Dehnert gifted Red Room to TheNewDowse. Red Room was a finalist in the prestigious Fletcher Challenge Ceramic Awards. This is the first time it has been exhibited in the last decade.