Opened Tuesday 19th March at 5.30pm.


The practices of Karen Rubado, Krystina Kaza and Vivienne Worn share a concern with lightness, valuing complexity and a sensitivity to materials in a bid to operate from a position of thoughtfulness. Their work nods to modernism, but from a position that refutes its certitude, binaries and hierarchies and opts, instead, for sensitivity and a lighter touch.

Ideas around lightness are drawn from Italian author Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millennium. In it, he discusses lightness as a key value needed to face life in the twenty-first century. He describes how, throughout history, visions of levitation such as shamans flying off to other worlds or the suspended calm enchantment of the moon have bolstered those facing the burden of a constricted life or a precarious existence. Calvino’s lightness is thoughtful, as opposed to frivolous: rather than escaping into dreams of the irrational, it suggests viewing things from a different logic that remains grounded and present. Lightness then, could be seen as a way of making and thinking that, rather than dreaming of escape, sits within our troubled times.


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Utilizing floor-loom and tapestry weaving, Karen Rubado’s practice employs hand-made techniques and forms to explore methods of aggregating and transforming found materials. Karen lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland and has an MFA (2018) from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. She was featured as an emerging artist for “Projects,” curated by Gabriela Salgado and Francis McWhannell in the 2018 Auckland Art Fair. Recent exhibitions include Weaving Structural Improvisation, Elam Grad Show, Auckland, 2018; Mix Tape, George Fraser Gallery, Auckland, 2018 and Winter Art Ache, Lot 23, Auckland, 2018.

Krystina Kaza’s work explores the metaphorical and symbolic content of abstract geometric languages using a limited palette of materials. Krystina lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, and has a MFA (2015) from the Elam School of Fine Arts and an architecture degree from the Cooper Union in New York. Recent exhibitions include Satellite, SPA_CE Gallery, Napier, 2018; Empirical Matter, State Gallery, Auckland, 2018 and the Artists in Residence, Taipei Artists Village, Taipei, Taiwan, 2018.

Small “clippings” or details from online reproductions of historical paintings act as beginnings for Vivienne Worn’s work, offering a mapping of sorts, or mingling with, past painterly moments and brushstrokes from afar. Vivienne lives and works in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. She holds an MFA (2017) from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland and is currently a member of the RM collective. Recent exhibitions include Looking in, breathing out, Enjoy Gallery, Wellington, 2018; Back to Fore, George Fraser Gallery, Auckland, 2017 and Re-reading Laurencin, Window Gallery, Auckland, 2017.


Photography by Pippy McClenaghan
Design by Brad Heappey.