Artist Talks: Jade Townsend and Matthew Galloway

Jade Townsend and Matthew Galloway, the artists behind two new exhibitions at the gallery, will share insights about their work in a joint floor talk, followed by refreshments. Free, no booking required.

Jade will discuss the thinking behind He Whare Ātaahua, her installation which combines different traditions of painting, adornment, and decoration. She will talk about the process of painting directly onto the gallery walls, responding to the architecture and important influences, including her father’s work as a sign-writer and John Hovell’s wharekai at Te Aute college.

Matthew will discuss the links between his new work, Empty Vessels, and Mohamed Sleiman Labat’s film Desert Narratives. Exploring the shifting political grounds of global food production, Galloway and Sleiman Labat, who have had ongoing correspondence since meeting in 2016, present different perspectives on Aotearoa’s reliance on phosphate rock from Western Sahara, used to make fertiliser.

Jade Townsend (Ngāti Kahungunu, Te Ātihaunui-a-Pāpārangi, Pākehā, British), lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Her work often draws from the different parts of her own heritage, in conversation with contemporary Māori painting and aesthetics. Born and raised in Whanganui, she moved to Liverpool as a teenager, where she became interested in accents, dialects, regional slang, folktales, and pūrākau. Townsend returned to Aotearoa in her mid-twenties, after studying at the Manchester School of Art and continues to exhibit nationally and internationally.

Matthew Galloway lives and works in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. His research-based practice employs the tools and methodologies of graphic design, often within a gallery context. This way of working emphasises design and publishing as an inherently political exercise. Matthew has exhibited widely in Aotearoa and well as internationally, and often works collaboratively to draw attention to environmental and social politics.