Life Puzzle is the first substantial exhibition to survey the work of Ōtepoti-based artist Nick Austin. Featuring drawings, paintings, and sculptures produced over the last 15 years and selected and arranged by the artist, it is a reprise and an expansion of the show first devised for Whangarei Art Museum, which is where the artist was born and grew up.
Austin’s deadpan humour runs through the exhibition, which he describes as being put together “in the manner of a person who, late in the evening, gazing into the middle distance asks: ‘How the heck did I get here?’.”
Positing absurd scenarios, such as hitchhiking envelopes, an outsized coffee mug that no human could drink from, and a brick wall providing the backdrop for a downpipe that sports the town’s wristwatch, Austin takes the everyday and renders it surreal and puzzling. He says his aim is to “articulate familiar senses—anticipation, uncertainty, the difficulty of communication—in unfamiliar ways.”
For the iteration at the Adam the artist is recreating three sculptural works especially for the Gallery’s unusual spaces. He will be offering a tour of his exhibition at 12 pm on Saturday 11 February. This is free and open to everyone, and no registration is required.
Running alongside Life Puzzle is the first in an occasional series of presentations of art works from Ngā Puhipuhi o Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington Art Collection: Aro Toi / Art Collection in Focus. Ana Iti’s 2021 video, A dusty handrail on the track, made during the artist’s McCahon House Residency, was purchased in 2022 as one of five works added to the Collection to mark the University’s 125th anniversary.
The work features fragments of text from the writings of wāhine Māori authors: Keri Hulme, June Mitchell, and J.C. Sturm. Iti’s work builds a bridge between visual art and literature, making an eloquent statement about the idiosyncrasies of reading, where a personal path is charted through the words of others.
As Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery’s Curator Collections Sophie Thorn says: “We are pleased to be showing this video in the gallery setting, before we find a home for the work on campus. Iti is emerging as one of an exciting new generation of contemporary Māori artists who has developed a practice that reinterprets historical artefacts as a way to sort and come to terms with the remnants of a colonial past and to rethink these through the lens of her Māori identity.”
Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery Director Christina Barton is excited by the pairing of these two artists. “While ostensibly Austin and Iti are poles apart, I see them both messing with things they encounter, to interpolate new meanings that challenge expectations and allow us to rethink our relationship to ideas, forms, and objects in playful but important ways.”
Nick Austin was born in Whangārei in 1979. He received a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Auckland University of Technology in 2001 and a Master of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, in 2004. He has exhibited throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and in Australia, the United States and Europe. In 2012 he was the Frances Hodgkins Fellow at the University of Otago in Dunedin, where he now lives.
Ana Iti (Te Rarawa) is currently based in Hawke’s Bay. She works with sculpture, video, and text. Her recent work explores the practice of history making through shared and personal narratives. Iti completed a Master of Fine Arts at Toi Rauwharangi Massey University Wellington. Since we last showed her work in The earth looks upon us /Ko Papatūānuku te matua o te tangata, she has had a busy schedule of exhibitions in Auckland, Dunedin, New Plymouth, and Wellington.
Exhibition details
Nick Austin: Life Puzzle
Aro Toi / Art Collection in Focus: Ana Iti: A dusty handrail on the track, 2021
Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery
11 February–30 April 2023
Opening hours
Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery
Tuesday–Sunday 11 am–5 pm
Group visits are welcome. If your group is larger than five people and you would like a tour or introduction to the shows, contact the Gallery Administrator Ann Gale on ann.gale@vuw.ac.nz or 04-463 5229.
Address
Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington
Gate 3, Kelburn Parade
Wellington 6140