Kevin Thorne, Xuān Earring II, silver. Photo by Russ Flatt.
Pushing Parallels
28 November 2024 - 9 March 2025
Ground Floor Galleries
Pushing Parallels is a celebration of re-learning and questioning traditional art practices. Showcasing a diverse group of multidisciplinary artists from Aotearoa, they are encouraged to experiment, pushing the limits of their mediums to create a playground of colour and form. Curated by Abbie La Rooy, Kiki Hall, and Michael Prosee, the exhibition features works from The Arts House Trust collection alongside invited artists who, although formally trained in one discipline, have ventured into new artistic territories. By embracing this shift, they challenge conventional modes of artmaking and explore innovative ways to express their ideas.
Each room within the exhibition serves as a chapter, distinctively coloured and themed, yet interconnected through the relationships between varied processes, materials and scale. These spaces reshape and re-contextualise materials in the presence of one another; offering an invitation to engage with art in unexpected ways.
This exploration of materiality and form reflects a broader trend in contemporary art, where boundaries between disciplines are increasingly blurred. The curators are interested in how these artists, both past and present, experiment with their chosen materials, leading to unexpected results that invite deeper considerations and re-present objects in a new context.
Each artist in this exhibition exemplifies a commitment to pushing the limits of their practice. For instance, 海良(hǎi liáng)/Kevin Yu, the artist behind Kevin Thorne overlaps two fields of investigation: architecture and jewellery. His work delves into the interplay between spatial environment and human experience, exploring how people interact with their environments and how space can be expressed on the human body. Similarly, Helen Calder's practice seamlessly blends painting and sculpture. Rather than relying on traditional painting supports, she drapes paint over metal rods, accentuating the properties of the isolated material.
Abbie, Kiki, and Michael are not only curators but also artists and art workers, deeply immersed in the daily investigation of art objects. Their experiences across various artistic settings have enriched their understanding of materials and practices, directly shaping Pushing Parallels. This exhibition is a testament to their passion for exploring how artists transcend traditional boundaries in their work.
Pushing Parallels presents a culmination of ongoing contributions in the evolving area of artistic expression. By examining the relationships between different works, the exhibition invites audiences on a journey of discovery, transforming the familiar into the unfamiliar and revealing the hidden spaces in between.
Writing by Lindsey de Roos.
Artist Biographies
Kevin Thorne, Xuan Ring I, sterling silver. Photo by Russ Flatt.
海良(hǎi liáng)
Kevin Thorne
Kevin Thorne is a jewellery brand based in Tamaki Makaurau, dedicated to hand craftsmanship. Through his background in working as an architect, Kevin Yu - the sole artist of Kevin Thorne – transfers these methodologies and aesthetics through metal and jewellery making. Kevin’s unique approach combines influences from his Chinese heritage and a sensitivity to material resulting in a balanced and elegant collection. His contemporary pieces convey personal stories and allow wearers to connect with his philosophy.
Born in Shandong, China, 海良(hǎi liáng)/Kevin Yu, also known as Kevin Thorne, was deeply influenced by traditional arts, which shaped his aesthetic identity. After moving to New Zealand to study architecture, he developed a unique spatial awareness that he now incorporates into his brand, Kevin Thorne Jewellery. His work fuses the poetic romance of Oriental aesthetics with bold, contemporary elements from architecture, creating jewellery work that is both wearable art and a representation of his cross-pollinated life stories.
Katherine Rutecki, Green Double Bubble no. 2, blown and hot cast Uranium lagoon glass, mirror, birchwood ply, 330x100x360mm, 2016 (detail) Photo Sarah-Jane Wilcox.
Katherine Rutecki
Katherine Rutecki is a sculptor living in Aotearoa who works with an emphasis in glass and lost wax casting techniques and in recent years has expanded into performative works. Rutecki’s current work explores defences and boundaries of self. She holds a BFA in sculpture from the New York College of Ceramics at Alfred University and a MFA in glass from Southern Illinois University, Illinois. Rutecki has been involved in several international group exhibitions, taking place at such venues as the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Ebeltoft Glass Museum in Denmark, and CICA Museum in the Republic of South Korea, as well as solo exhibitions in the US, New Zealand, and Europe.
Hannah Valentine, A line, a hand, a weight, 2020-2024, Bronze. Photo by Sam Hartnett.
Hannah Valentine
Hannah Valentine’s work follows two distinct threads. The first is interest in the body and tactile sensibilities. If we are being conditioned away from sensibility, towards consumerism, she questions how we might reinvigorate feeling and its importance in the way we interact with the world and each other. Underlying this is an interest in ‘how to live’ or ’how to be,’ in what we choose to be important and what we pass on. The second is an interest in the environment and the vast ecological challenges we face. Her work takes form primarily in object and installation.
Rohan Hartley Mills
Rohan Hartley Mills (b. Pingelly Western Australia) is a Melbourne-based artist who spent ten years studying and working in New Zealand, before returning to Australia in 2018. Delighting in improvisation while in the same breath taking a studied approach to the medium of painting, there is an open-ended quality to Mills paintings that is fleet-footed and lithe. Observation and response are key strategies of his practice, through which he filters experiences from his everyday environment into swift painterly exercises, freely exploring drawing strategies and the qualities of colour and form.
He graduated with a Master of Art and Design in Painting, with First Class Honours from the Auckland University of Technology in 2013 and has since exhibited throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Angus Edwards
Angus Edwards is a contemporary sculptor exploring the intersection of art and the industrial. In formative years, Angus was exposed to manufacturing environments, directly informing the processes and materials he works with today. Referencing architectural forms, Angus reduces them down to their simplest elements, a single line. This invites audiences to consider the familiar, prompting reflections on how we perceive and interact with the objects that surround us.
Abbie La Rooy
Working with clay, Abbie La Rooy investigates the material qualities, and her interaction with it. This body of work utilises simple repetitive forms on leather-hard clay. Playing with the idea of order and disorder, she disrupts the lines documenting the moment of disturbance. The works are then wood fired, enhancing the form, high points catch the flame, and shaded areas remain protected and raw.
Abbie graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London in 2019 with a B.A. in Design. She has exhibited works across the UK and was recipient for the Emerge Bursary 2023.
Kiki Hall
Kiki Hall is a Japanese-New Zealand multidisciplinary artist interested in highlighting the intricacies of often overlooked moments. Her practice draws upon observations from her daily surroundings, translating these memories into glass. Focusing on natural occurrences and the details of our world, Kiki interlinks her cultural background with her fascination for the complexity and beauty of nature.
Michael Prosée
Michael Prosée works across ceramics, painting and mixed media. His practice is led by process, with no distinct boundaries or constraints between materials. Working intuitively, Michael creates paintings and ceramics in tandem, responding to material behaviours by acting and reacting. He is led by curiosity where each decision is informed by the previous outcome, resulting in “each layer becoming a record of time, experience, thought, emotion incurred during the act of making” (Aleksandra Petrovic, 2018).