Merely a Frame, 2018 (left: Maureen Kaegi, middle: Kato Six, right: Esther Stewart)
Exhibition overview
Exhibition overview
Merely a Frame
2024Ninow Bowerbank gallery, Auckland NZ
Merely a Frame, an exhibition curated by Esther Stewart, brings together works by Maureen Kaegi, Kato Six and Esther Stewart, three artists that deal with abstraction and the interfaces between art and other creative fields such as design, architecture, textiles and dance.
The “frame” referred to in the title might be the frame of an artwork, the barrier that traditionally delineates the zone in which artmaking and consumption takes place from the non-art universe. It might also be a “frame narrative,” a story within a story, a submerged frame of reference obscuring both the tale and the teller. In either case, Stewart’s choice of title suggests an ambivalence towards the idea of “framing,” in all of its meanings.
This show includes both drawings and a sculpture, Spinning Lines Twisting Thoughts, by Kato Six. Six’s work deals with a materiality that is liminal and intangible: in other works, she has used dust as a medium, while in Spinning Lines the work takes the form of a number of lengths of black and white rope, that are knotted and wound around one another to form the work. The knotting of the ropes, their topological relationship to one another, is open to change and reconfiguration when the work is re-shown; in effect, each iteration of the work becomes a unique confluence of space, material and information. Six’s drawings likewise deal with the idea of knotting and topology, but in the context of knitting, diagramming the fundamental building blocks of a piece of fabric, and reimagining it as an expansive network of interconnected spatial movements.
Pencil on paper, 50 x 70cm (4)
200m black & white cotton rope
200m black & white cotton rope
200m black & white cotton rope
Pencil on paper, 50 x 70cm (4)
200m black & white cotton rope
200m black & white cotton rope
200m black & white cotton rope
200m black & white cotton rope
Pencil on paper, 50 x 70cm (4)