17 July – 1 September
Ground floor galleries
Exhibition Catalogue
Moonage Daydream presents a large-scale exhibition of New Zealand artist Andrea du Chatenier. With a career spanning twenty-plus years, du Chatenier’s work is in sum contemporary sculpture with a myriad of materials, techniques, and themes. This exhibition draws on two threads of her practice – figurative sculpture and ceramics. In the first are figures or beasts with a mythic quality, often dressed in fashion accessories and formed from present-day materials. Of the second, her recent turn to ceramic media is presented; resulting in more abstract forms. A selection of work produced over the last twelve months is shown with other series from the last five years.
Andrea du Chatenier can claim the role of storyteller; her figures have a unique narrative of their own. As hybrid forms, they reference paradigms, particularly nature/culture/gender, often set together as opposing notions. Temporality is also important with the past and present jostling through referents and media used. Many of her figures are carved into life like traditional sculpture but with the use of modern-day Polystyrene. One such example is the figure European primitive with Jimmy Choo (2009) from the Collection. The polystyrene body of the figure is flocked with shiny black material, dressed in Jimmy Choo high heel shoes and standing on a mirrored platform; the form itself is based on a prehistorical fertility symbol, pregnant belly, large breasts and a piglet on her head. du Chatenier describes the work as “an ironic overload of contradictory symbols of femininity”.
In her current practice Andrea du Chatenier has turned her focus to ceramics, exploring inherent qualities of the medium. Her direction over the last five years also shows a departure from the figurative evident in earlier work. The forms are more abstracted, commonly stacked together as towering structures. They may appear archaic or futuristic, alternatively organic or artificial. There is a tactile quality emphasised in her use of ceramic glazing. The glaze dresses these forms with varying material qualities – a flatness or sheen, stasis or flow. It appears cracked on the surfaces and running thickly like a melted substance.
Andrea du Chatenier completed a BFA at the University of Auckland in 1995 and Master of Fine Arts degree through RMIT, Melbourne in 1998. She has received numerous grants and awards for her accomplished and challenging work, including selection for the São Paulo Biennale in 2004, the Wallace Arts Trust Vermont Award in the 2018 Wallace Art Awards. In 2004 du Chatenier was awarded the Tylee Cottage Artist Residency at the Sarjeant Gallery. Upon the completion of this residency she decided to remain in Whanganui, where she now teaches at UCOL’s School of Fine Arts. du Chatenier has shown widely both nationally and internationally for more than a decade.
Exhibition Catalogue:
Image credit: Celestial Forest, 2018, Stoneware, porcelain, glaze and feldspar, 600 x 450 x 400mm