UPTOWN ART SCENE

Enjoy some arts and culture on your weekend getaway to Hawkes Bay.

Te Matau-a-Maui is not closed, despite the damage wrought by Cyclone Gabrielle, and on my recent trip there, Hawkes Bay New Zealand grabbed me to film a quick promo video.

I was in Hastings for the opening of my exhibition No straight lines at Te Whare Toi o Heretaunga Hastings City Art Gallery (until 16 July), a show that brings together some significant paintings made between 2017 and 2023.

Two arrived recently from China, having being shown at the eigth Beijing Biennale, while one is on loan from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. One is a eulogy for my mother who passed away last year.

I completed a giant painting in March specially for the show: at nearly 3m high and 11m wide, viewers will almost feel like they’re inside the painting. This work has a beginning, middle and end, and can be read as chapters or verses, or a cyclical process. It plays with the idea of an illusionistic space that we can move into and through, with an end/beginning panel that brings it back to just being about paint and what paint might do.

Transporting the exhibition to the Bay in a large van, I emerged from the hills into the Esk Valley, where the destruction of homes and livelihoods is shocking. Napier and Hastings are open for business, however, and many of the businesses rely on tourism.

I highly recommend the MTG in Napier, the regional museum with current exhibitions by fashion designer Minh Ta and ceramic artist Janna van Hasselt. Treat yourselves to lunch at Mister D’s. Hastings has had a make-over around the Toitoi Events Centre and its historic 1915 Opera House, with great eateries and the Gin Distillery.

Flights are cheap and the road is open – check the incredible Maori carvings at Waitangi, walk the tracks at Te Mata, and see No straight lines at Hastings City Art Gallery!

EVAN WOODRUFFE, Studio Art Supplies www.studioart.co.nz