Friday 16 February 2018 1:10pm
The University's 2017 Frances Hodgkins Fellow Campbell Patterson with toot floor 2017-18, oil, gesso, cardboard, stones, pva, photo, beetroot, red grapefruit seeds, toilet paper, metal tray, carpet. The work is the title piece of Patterson's latest exhibition, which opens to the public at Hocken Collections tomorrow. It is an abstract painting, surrounded by wrappers from snickers bars consumed by the artist during his Fellowship year. Photo: Emma Allen.
Known for his artistic diversity, Campbell Patterson’s latest exhibition, at the Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena, is a brilliant showcase of his talent.
Created during his time as the 2017 University of Otago Frances Hodgkins Fellow, toot floor includes painting, film, and works on paper. The exhibition was launched at a function at the Hocken yesterday evening, and will open to the public tomorrow.
Patterson says his time on the fellowship has been “amazing’’ and he will “really miss’’ Dunedin.
He is also “extremely grateful’’ for what the fellowship provided and allowed him to create.
Hocken Curator Art – Pictorial Collections Andrea Bell says the Fellowship recognises the important role artists play in the community.
“It has contributed greatly to New Zealand art for over 50 years,’’ she says.
Inspired by “night-time, isolation and boredom’’, the exhibition draws on the detritus of the Patterson’s surroundings.
He translates common materials, or habits, into formalist exercises that meditate on the tedious as an aesthetic device.
Engaging in conscious acts of repetition to document the banality and absurdity of everyday life, Patterson makes the ordinary seem abstract in the 15 pieces he has spent the past year creating.
Patterson has a varied creative practice spanning painting, sculpture, printmaking, text, video and installation.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, the University of Auckland in 2006, and was awarded the Artist in Residence at McCahon House in 2015.
Take a look:
‘Campbell Patterson toot floor’
Sat 17 Feb to Sat 14 Apr 2018, Mon to Sat, 10am to 5pm
Hocken Collections, Uare Taoka o Hākena
90 Anzac Ave, Dunedin
About the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship
The Frances Hodgkins Fellowship was established by the University of Otago Council in 1962, largely through the efforts of Dunedin philanthropists.
It was intended to “encourage artists in the practice and advancement of their art” by providing them with a studio and a year’s stipend, to aid and encourage painters, sculptors and multi-media artists, while at the same time associating them with the life of the University and fostering an interest in the Arts within the University.
It was named after Dunedin-born Frances Hodgkins, one of New Zealand's most distinguished painters.