Artist:Poet:Artist

An exhibition and poetry reading to celebrate National Poetry Day.

Gregory O’Brien is a painter and writer of poetry, fiction and non-fiction. Described as ‘highly original’ and ‘constantly surprising’, his poetry and his artworks are very much interlinked. O’Brien combines his love of uncovering the histories and stories about locations and events with the sheer joy of his own first-hand experiences. His is a whimsical approach. His poems may be presented in written forms but also pictorially, and often his artworks are interwoven with text.

The show will include new works following his recent travels to Raoul Island, in the Kermadecs, as one of nine artists invited to visit the island and develop a body of artworks which will be exhibited later this year at Tauranga Art Gallery to raise awareness to the need to care about our oceans and environment.

Alongside will be earlier artworks inspired by summers on Waiheke, and travels to Fiordland as well as new suite of etchings for which O’Brien collaborated with fellow artist and poet John Pule.

For artist John Lyall, poetry is “a way of trapping things that would otherwise drift away.” It allows him to “remember, reminisce, and tease out”. Not all of his poems are written at the time of an event; by looking back or re-writing later, he has found he often contextualises the event differently.

The writing which began in his school days has become for Lyall a poetic autobiography – be it an idiosyncratic one. The poems provide for us an insight into the artist and his experiences, be they from his travels to participate in an exhibition in Sarajevo, or a response to his own artwork.

Do join us Friday 22nd July, 6-7.30pm, for an hour or so of poetry, to view the exhibition and relax into the evening listening to readings from three local poets – Bob Orr, John Pule and John Lyall.

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