Sonia Richter
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Sonia Richter blurs the boundaries between painting, sculpture and fashion in three dimensional wall-hung pieces which tell stories that are both personal and universal. Vintage shop finds and long-treasured pieces, from boyfriends’ shirts to vintage dresses, provide inspiration for works which might be theatrical or thought-provoking, humorous, sexy or nostalgic.
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“I have always had a huge interest in clothing design and wearable art. This comes through strongly in my recent painting” says Richter.
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Richter held her first solo show in 2002. She was largely self-taught but a desire to learn more about international art within a New Zealand context, led her to art school in 2003. Here Richter enjoyed professional tuition and full immersion in her practice. She has since participated in group and solo shows.
Over the past decade Richter’s canvases have become increasingly figurative with vintage clothing and found objects providing the impetus for her painterly expression. She works primarily on a large-scale in acrylic on canvas or board, and sometimes includes flowers, organic material (partly a nod to Anselm Kiefer, b.1945), animal bones and religious or cultural symbols.
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Richter has recently held a solo show, State of [a] dress, in New York City and has representation with Isabella Gurucho Fine Art in Greenwich, Connecticut.
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Her passion for the community and longing to connect the local established artists with the younger generation lead her to create the Art Cell Gallery.
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Alice Herald
“My Jewels are playful and bold. They celebrate ultimate elegance and beauty.”
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Alice Herald fell in love with art from an early age. Forever the creative, her energies have since flowed through to jewellery- where she has an unending desire to seek out the untold story. Alice’s time spent studying sculpture and jewellery in Mexico cemented her passion for design, and echoes of this trip are reflected in her work today. Alice gained a BA Hons in Jewellery Design at London’s renowned Central Saint Martin’s - and subsequently showcased her jewellery around the UKincluding showing at London Fashion week. She has also been featured in both Australian and Russian Vogue. Alice now lives in Wanaka, New Zealand, where she co-founded an online engagement ring company in 2008 before starting her own label Herald Diamond Couture in 2016. Alice explores her life stories through her Ready to Wear and Diamond Couture Collections. Bespoke is where she collaborates with her clients and design jewels that tell of their stories and relationships they wish to celebrate. Her clients are both NZ and international.
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Martin Hill and Philippa Jones
Martin Hill and Philippa Jones have collaborated for 20 years to make ephemeral land art in wild natural places. They utilise both the processes and forms that reflect nature’s cyclical system. The intention is to illuminate how our unsustainable way of life can be reversed through better design informed by nature’s regenerative principles. They live and work in Wanaka.
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Martin Hill was born 1946 London, UK, studied art and design and worked as a designer internationally, founding an award-winning design company in New Zealand.
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In 1994 he began making environmental sculptures in collaboration with his partner Philippa Jones and Hill’s photographs of them are published and exhibited internationally. A photography book Earth to Earth was published in 2007 with essays from leaders in sustainable practice. In 2009 Synergy was made for Pou Whenua Project for Wanaka’s Festival of Colour.
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A film of Hill and Jones’s art practice was made in 2010, titled A Delicate Canvas in conjunction with an exhibition at Gallery 33 in Wanaka.
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Watershed was an extensive project made during the inaugural Kenneth Myer Alpine artists residency at Whare Kea Chalet on Albert Burn Saddle near Mt Aspiring National Park and examined the water cycle and climate change. It was exhibited at McClelland Gallery Melbourne in 2014 and Gallery33 here in Wanaka, as well as at Pingyao International Photography Festival, winning an award for excellence in photography.
Also in 2014 Antarctica New Zealand invited Hill and Jones to Ross Island in McMurdo Sound to make sculptures.
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In 2015 they participated in Tamatea, Art and Conservation in Dusky Sound, a DOC artist project in Fiordland, that toured New Zealand.
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2015: Solo exhibitions at Andorra Land Art Festival and Inter Gallery Beijing. Synergy was a finalist in Arte Laguna Prize Venice in 2016 and the same year The Guardians series won an international award at the Fine Art Photography Awards (FAPA).
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Currently the work in progress is the Fine Line Project, begun 1995, consisting of 12 ephemeral sculptures made and photographed on high points connected by a line encircling Earth.
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Neal Palmer
BA Hons, Fine Art - Trent University
Neal has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. His work focuses on natural forms using scale, colour and pattern to create dramatic and emotive paintings.
Neal has been a full time artist since 1999 and has participated in group shows and events, including: Artists in Eden (for the last ten years), the Los Angeles International Biennial Art Invitational, ‘35 K’ at Artspace Auckland, 'Big Red' Rotorua Museum, 'Putiputi' Hastings City Art Galery, and as a finalist in the Molly Morpeth, Margret Stoddart and Wallace Art Awards. He has had 20 solo shows in that time, and been reviewed and recommended in various publications, with feature articles in: Art News NZ (Spring 2017 edition), Art New Zealand (Autumn 2004 edition); NZ Horse & Pony (November 2016); Sunday Star Times; the NZ Herald ‘Arts on Monday’ and ‘Viva’ magazine.
Neal’s work is held in collections in NZ (including the Wallace Arts Trust), Australia, UK, USA, Spain, France, Hong Kong, Dubai & Malaysia.
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“Precision on a grander scale is apparent in the work of Neal Palmer who is showing at SOCA Gallery in France St, Newton. Individual paintings often consist of panels of aluminium on board. They are held together by a dancing rhythm of intersecting geometric arcs. Behind these are accurately painted pohutukawa and flax. These are exuberant, three times life size, and often startlingly red though with a hint of decay and insect activity. The brushwork emphasises such things as the fibrous nature of flax leaves. The rhetorical enlargement, geometry and realism celebrate the variety of growth in many forms, from the trumpeting stamen of a big red hibiscus in Feeling Fruity, to the erect thrust of red flax flowers in Big Love. This accomplished exhibition is called The Sum of Their Parts and surely the total comes to more than their sum.” - T.J. McNamara in the NZ Herald, reviewing The Sum Of Their Parts, November 2006.
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To buy locally Milford Galleries Queenstown
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Jane Kellahan
Jane Kellahan is an internationally exhibited and award winning artist with 20 years experience. This year in July, Jane has been selected to exhibit her work at the Museo Internazionale Italia Arte in Turin, Italy. In 2015 Jane received a special mention at the London Art Biennale. As New Zealand's sole representative, she was one of 120 international artists to exhibit at the prestigious event.
In 2011 Jane received third place in the Leonardo Prize at the Biennale of Chianciano, Italy. That same year she was a finalist and in 2009, Jane won the renowned Cricket Art Prize in Australia with her work, 'White Wickets.'
She exhibited at the 2005 Florence Biennale in Italy. Her work was featured in Denis Robinson's book, 'New Zealand's Favourite Artists' and was also selected by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2000.
Jane works with sensuous oils to create thought-provoking works, crafted onto canvas, wood, and paper. Japanese tissue mixed with mediums and oils are layered, rubbed down and painted over. These organic textures produce rich paintings with resonant depth, and imbued with light and potency.
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Stephen Martyn Welch
Stephen Martyn Welch is a Wanaka based painter. Born 1972 attended Dilworth Boarding School for boys. SMW is a self taught artist who sees Frazetta,Caravaggio and Singer Sargent as his main influences. SMW mainly focuses on portraiture with the odd interdiction in to figurative painting. In 2008 SMW undertook a television show called The Sitting in which SMW interviewed well known kiwis while commencing a portrait . At the end of the show the sitter gets to see their portrait in a unedited form. All works were then auctioned off for Starship Children's Hospital.Then again in 2011 SMW was involved in a 2nd series of The Sitting and raised over $200,000. The following year SMW won the prestigious Adam Portrait Award . With numerous working in private and public collections here and overseas, SMW is considered the driving force in portraiture in NZ. Following a old tradition as portrait painting, SMW feels he is bringing portraiture forward as a unique way to capture a moment and a memory made into a very special and one of a kind painting. Working with the finest oil paints and Dutch linen, your very own portrait is completed to a museum quality artwork.
Victoria Stevens
I am a recent graduate of the master’s programme at the Dunedin School of Art and work from my home based studio. I work predominantly in textiles but also use the mediums of print and paint. My most recent exhibition Ninety is an installation of ninety individual textile works which are predominantly hand stitched. Ninety was my attempt to negotiate and record the construction of my identity as an individual living in contemporary New Zealand. New Zealand is a country of new arrivals, people who derive their sense of identity, their tribal roots, from different pathways – the waka migrations, the first four ships, post-war immigrant ships. I did not know my roots. Ninety is my journey toward identifying my tribe, seamstresses, and the power of inherited memory. My works apply traditional domestic skills, interpreting them in new ways to challenge the notion of what textiles can or should depict. Currently I am working on embroidery on paper while referencing domestic traditions and rituals which women bring to the human experience.
Natashia Bartley
Natashia text coming soon...
Mara Modlin
Mara Modlin grew up in the United States receiving her B.A. from the University of Arkansas. She continued her pursuit of art, studying lithography, intaglio, ceramics, welding, and sculpture resulting in a career
spanning 35 years.
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Modlin’s sculptures and wall installations have been privately collected, but can also be viewed in resorts and restaurants throughout Southern California. Traveling extensively abroad allowed her to explore different
cultures, and to hone her skills. She now resides full time in Wanaka, New Zealand, creating thought provoking, figurative sculpture
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Mara Modlin grew up in the USA receiving her B.A. from the University of Arkansas. She continued her pursuit of art, studying lithography, intaglio, ceramics, welding and sculpture resulting in a career spanning 35 years.
She now resides in Wanaka creating thought provoking, figurative sculpture.
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Modlin's sculptures capture the human condition. The figures inspire the viewer to connect with the space they inhabit and the emotions they express. With our hyperconnectivity to media and objects, our focus to ourselves and nature has taken a back seat. Modlin seeks to champion the spiritual and sublime, exploring the exalted human in space.
Pole2Pole
Aurora Borealis Instillation
Mark and Sonia Richter have been traveling up to the Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska for the past 3 years. One of the focuses has become getting photos and video footage of the Aurora Borealis to bring back home to create an art instillation project for 2019...ArtCell is hosting a 'teaser' of this footage in Cell #2...some on in, be brave enough to close the cell door behind you, lay in the dark and watch the amazing phenomenon of the Aurora Borealis. Sonia and Mark change the video weekly!
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Melissa Sharplin
Variety is where Melissa’s Passion lies, constantly looking for another subject to work on, in landscapes, pop art, portraits, and her favourite the female nude. Melissa creates nudes using warmth through rich vibrant skin tones, and a subtle softness in her detail.
Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, Melissa discovered her passion for realism at an early age, exploring with acrylics, sketches and moving into a more ‘Pop Art’ style during her early twenties.
Initially Melissa’s painting style used the dry brush technique, with acrylic paint. However, this was superseded in later years, with mentoring from New Zealand based artist Michael Mischewski, as she explored with oil paints, giving better depth of colour and flexibility in her work.
"I have an insatiable hunger for all things beautiful. My work reflects what I see in everyday living and I believe in sharing the love and deliciousness in what is truly magic”.
‘Pop Art’ and Realism have always influenced Melissa, interweaving her love of fashion, glamour and the female form. Her passion led her to a Diploma in Fashion, and this established a greater interest in fashion advertising, colour and structure.
This amalgamation of ideas established Melissa as the ‘New Pop Realism’ artist, fusing the commercial constructs of Pop Art and Photo Realism together.Melissa then moved to England for five years, completing two exhibitions and winning ‘Most Popular Painting Award’ in 2002.
She also worked extensively on international commissions, before returning home to New Zealand on larger collections.
Since then, her reputation as one of New Zealand’s most talented female artists has flourished. She has featured in several high profile publications including Her Magazine, Homestyle Magazine and Nightline.
In 2008 Sharplin’s sell out show, the iconic ‘Retro Nude’ collection, and has donated works to several charity events including; the Linwood High School Art Auction, the KIDSCAN ‘Stand Tall’ charity auction, and the Samoan Tsunami Relief Fund.
Demand for Melissa Sharplin’s work has grown exponentially. She now produces limited edition Giclee prints of her collections and exhibits new collections every year.
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