Hardback | 80 pages | 280 x 230 mm | 40 colour plates |
Elizabeth Thomson - Cellular Memory A Survey Exhibition 1989 – 2017 at Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History
9 December 2017 – 2 April 2018
The exhibition was accompanied by a highly illustrated publication with contributions from Gregory O’Brien, Lloyd Jones and Jenny Bornholdt.
"The atmosphere of the planet viewed from space. The inside of a plant cell. The surface of a human body. Ocean water at various depths, sunlight radiating through it. These kinds of territories, most often associated with science, lie at the heart of Elizabeth Thomson’s art. In her works, the natural world become a site of meditation, reverie and a very personal kind of poetry.
‘Cellular Memory’ speaks of three decades spent in the studio experimenting with different media and processes, and pursuing an ever-expanding concept of what art might be. The works in the exhibition are also shaped by extensive travels in Europe and the Americas, as well as through the Pacific and New Zealand. Observation and direct experience of the physical world, and the making of a photographic or memory record of it, are her starting point. It would be accurate to say that the outside world is also her studio"
Gregory O’Brien, curator
