NATALIE GUY: THEN AND THEN AGAIN

NATALIE GUY: THEN AND THEN AGAIN

New works from New Zealand and India reinterpreting modernism for a new time Natalie Guy recently completed a three month residency in Varanasi, India and the results of this residency form her new exhibition, Then and Then Again. Working with manufacturers she met in the city, Guy weaves some of the wonder of Varanasi into her distinctive sculpture practice. Utilising a contrasting palette of hard material (iron formed into shapes by a local Varanasi blacksmith) and soft fibres (traditional muslin dyed and embroidered with designs inspired by Gordon Walters prints), this exhibition regenerates and brings together New Zealand modernism and Indian handcraft. The residency Guy completed is based at Kriti Gallery and is supported by Asia New Zealand Foundation. All enquiries to Fox Jensen McCrory Telephone +649 360 9161 GALLERY@JENSENGALLERY.CO.NZ

THE RECENT WORK OF NATALIE GUY, JANUARY 2018 In adopting the early-50s geometric motifs of Gordon Walters, Natalie Guy pulls at a thread of hard-edge abstraction that weaves back through the European masters who influenced Walters before his return to New Zealand. In her hands, these rationalised shapes, which once performed a moral commitment to purity, logic and progress, are claimed for her crafting of them into a domestic pattern. Here the histories of women at home, drudging or decorating with needle and thread, vie with a concurrent history of modernist man rethinking the world in his image. Guy lifts these forms from their gendered history and resituates them, so their old rhetoric is stifled under the silence of her body's labour. By poking, pushing, pulling, pressing, knotting and snipping at them their former qualities, delineating clarity and rationality, are complicated and made uneven. Hard-edged shapes that once loomed outside time in the minds of men are softened with puckered boundaries and fringed with remnant threads. Geometry lends itself well to scissor and stitch, and once worked into their banners, the forms participate in a world of light, shadow and air that folds in around us, as well as catching on warp and weft. These gauzy, diaphanous vales may infer some sense of the feminine, but not just feminine in some soft, delicate way, though delicacy is certainly present. The banners show us a woman retracing a once idealised form and giving it the weight of cloth, making it touchable, physical, laboured. There is a gynecic authority at work, robustly reminding us that the controlled angles, logical grids, spiritual squares, strict lines and transcendent rectangles were once shapes of a disembodied mindset. For Humanism did not put on women's clothes. Glen Snow

MADE IN VARANASI Clutching a three meter iron rod while on the back of a motorcycle on a dusty potholed road in a crush of cows, motorcycles, bicycles and auto rickshaws is not my usual way to get a sample material to a supplier. But things are done a little differently in Varanasi. After surveying many of the metal workers in the iron district with Ajay Pandey, who is a consultant to Kriti Gallery and my helpful translator, we had found a blacksmith working out of a tiny road-side stand who was happy to bend iron rod to my designs. Sample delivered safely (I was a little worried about the low slung power-lines) only to find out that tomorrow was the start of Vishwakarma, the ironworkers festival, which would last for five days. Another lesson on how Varanasi works. In 2017 I was fortunate to be awarded Asia New Zealand Foundation's newest art residency based at Kriti Gallery in Varanasi, India. Being awarded the three month residency was an amazing chance to really immerse myself in India and especially exciting to me - it was in the holy city of Varanasi, which is known as much for being challenging as it is wondrous. As a sculptor I was interested in how I could work with local artisans and suppliers and potentially work some of the wonder of Varanasi into a new project, which I see as being a fusion of New Zealand modernism (referencing Gordon Walters gouaches) and Indian handcraft. All of the fabric works in Then and Then Again were made in Varanasi, using locally sourced fabrics from the Khadi chain of stores and the weavers and dyers Hasin Mohd. The embroidery for the Then Again series was all done by one man Ali, who worked from his shop behind the road to Assi Ghat. After a few trials Ali perfected achieving the solid flat geometric shapes from the templates I provided without the delicate muslin tearing. We got into a good rhythm over the months with me delivering - usually by foot, new sewn drops and him completing usually 4-6 embroideries a week. Sometimes fabric sourcing caused delays and sometimes festivals like Diwali intervened and we finished the last works the week before I left. The embroidery for the Then works was done by Sunita s shop Rangisutra in Assi Ghat. They specialised in this open cross stitch embroidery and I was pleased to be able to include this as a counter-point to the Then Again works. The Then works being on heavy linen are not transparent and so do not have two parts, the detail lies in identifying the full work which is somewhat hidden with some parts being colour on colour embroidery. All the iron works were made by blacksmith Sunil in his shop in Dhupchandi. Sunil produced the works in batches as we worked through my designs, often making up to twelve a week. The iron rod I bought some miles from him and this was delivered by bicycle cart, which is still the most common way of delivering heavy goods in Varanasi. I would then catch an auto rick-shaw to pick up completed works, and would ferry these back to Kriti gallery. Sunil completed these works over six weeks which gave me plenty of time to arrange the necessary shipping, the finished total weight being 76kgs. I would like to acknowledge the skills of these collaborators which enabled me to realise the handmade intent of Then and Then Again. Natalie Guy

Top: Ali Middle: Sunil Lower: Khadi store PHOTOGRAPHS BY NATALIE GUY

Float, fall, and sigh, elongated fabric drops drift ethereally as if both light and air in material form. In the meeting point between these two elements, Natalie Guy s hand stitched geometric patterns call forth further unions that resonate on a decidedly global scale. Created on her three-month artist residency in Varanasi, India, the works of Then and Then Again marry the decorative traditional craft of embroidery and blacksmithing with a decidedly high art modernist aesthetic. The combination remains enigmatic, solid as in the 3D plastic prints, and integrally delicate, almost mythical, as in the celestial fabric works. Ultimately, Guy s works pose a question to the viewer of reinvigorated modernism, precisely between local and global practices. Much of the floating forms take inspiration from New Zealand artist Gordon Walters, whose primary concern lay in this dualism. Taking the koru as an emblematic precedent, Walters explored the relationship between figure and ground, unifying what he saw as two disparate systems of art. Guy s geometric shapes nod towards elements of his blocky compositions and separate them out into something new. Through the shifting interplay of light in the doubling of the muslin fabric she pays a certain kind of homage that is more subliminal than literal. Indebted to ambiguity,then and Then Again domesticates the white cube of the gallery, presenting a kind of modernism seen through frosted glass that is first and foremost a product of local craftsmanship. Annie Curtis

Published by Malcolm Smith Gallery on the occasion of Natalie Guy: Then and Then Again, 2018. Copyright Malcolm Smith Gallery, the artists and authors. Except in the context of research, criticism or review, or as otherwise permitted by the copyright act, no part may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. MALCOLM SMITH GALLERY UXBRIDGE ARTS & CULTURE 35 UXBRIDGE ROAD, HOWICK AUCKLAND 2014, NEW ZEALAND +64 9 535 6467 INFO@UXBRIDGE.ORG.NZ MALCOLMSMITHGALLERY.ORG.NZ Supported by: