Heart Seed by Thrive

Thrive is a group of young adults with disabilities who get together each week to learn and connect with others.  For the past 6 months, they have been immersed in the exploration of watercolour, weaving and painting with Uku/clay. They set out to dive into other media but landed so solidly inside these three that they kept going, and the deep exploration has been absolute bliss!

This exhibition gives you a little window into the processes and world that they has been exploring. If you look closely you will see common themes, but each person’s experience of these is quite different. 

Seed

Seed is a collaborative piece reflecting the cooperative nature of this exhibition.

This artwork is a huge collaboration and has been created by exploring processes with Watercolour paint and Uku. Contributors include the Chrome Collective group, volunteers, the general public, facilitators and friends. The kaupapa was to have the opportunity to experiment and dive into the processes of painting and creating while making art to create a bigger collaborative piece. Help us to scatter the seeds in our seed piece... each individual block is for sale! 

Making Uku/Clay paint to explore ancestral patterns

While exploring Uku the artists looked at their ancestral patterns and used these in their art.  In the gallery you will find our exploration of Uku paint, the materials used and an explanation of the process of finding uku (clay), the steps taken to prepare it for use in mahi toi/artwork, and the tikanga they followed.

Watercolour

The individual watercolour pieces in the exhibition are an example of each artist's interpretation of the techniques we explored in the Seed piece. The artists were encouraged to observe the feelings they had while painting, and also what feelings the paint evoked.

Weaving

The weaving in the gallery has been a particular passion for a few of the Chrome Crew group. Enabled by one of our volunteers, they have diligently created these pieces on looms.

This exhibition has been made possible because of the support of the Chrome Collective, a superb team of volunteers,  input from local artists and funding support from the Creative Communities funding scheme.