Marie Potter: A Prompt to Memory
29 April, 2014 - 6 July, 2014
Little Gallery
A Prompt to Memory is underpinned by Marie E Potter’s continuing re-evaluation of New Zealand cultural and social history. Her works interrogate the rituals and traditions which were established by early settlers in New Zealand as part of 19th century British colonialism, as well as where these values sit today in 21st century New Zealand. An ethnographic methodology enables her to utilise collected artefacts, steeped in history, as her artistic material.
Potter is interested in the role of the exhibition as a place where viewers can form their own narratives, observations and experiences and revisit their own cultural and social identities. She draws on the writing of visual theorist Dr Paul Grainge who believes that people have the power to revisit their past in an innovative way and re-invent it in the form of visual culture.
Marie Potter has been involved in the visual arts at all levels for many years and has works in various public collections including the Auckland War Memorial Museum, Wellington University, Voyager Maritime Museum and the Arts Trust. She holds a Master of Fine Arts (2010) and a Diploma of Textile Arts (1985) from Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Auckland.
Potter’s practice relates to the work of New Zealand artists Christine Hellyar, Kate Newby and Dan Arps, who all use quotidian objects in a subjective manner to create work which relates to social, cultural and historical values and systems. Potter is interested in the simplicity and elegance of the modernist movement in 20th century art, especially the work of Marcel Duchamp. She is also inspired by feminist artist Louis Bourgeois, who as a mature female artist has made works not informed by the constraints of one material, but by the utilisation of the most appropriate mediums to portray her contextual focus, in particular the worth of women.
Recently Potter has returned from an invited short term residency at New Zealand Pacific Studio, Kaiparoro, Wairarapa. A Prompt to Memory was inspired by site-specific work created at the Kaipororo residency, which featured excavated domestic objects that once belonged to the original owners of the Kaipororo Historic House, New Zealand pioneers Sarah and Christopher Normandell-Burnett.