Image: Sophie Sutherland, ‘Thrive Optima 2.0’ (detail), Electronic components with sound, PLA, found objects, 2024.
Photo: Miranda Bellamy
Attendees will read and discuss a text connected to our current exhibition Maximum Potential NOW. This month’s reading is ‘Always Be Optimizing’ from the essay collection Trick Mirror by writer Jia Tolentino.
Contact beth@blueoyster.org.nz if you need help finding a copy of the text.
This hour-long gathering will be held at Blue Oyster from 5:30pm, Wednesday, 15 May | Rāapa, 15 Mei.
No RSVP is required and light refreshments will be provided.
Samantha Cheng works across installation, sculpture and video to pursue purposelessness and seek out humourous encounters in artmaking. These strategies in her practice consider failure as a generative space for making performative gestures that operate as an ongoing rehearsal for the real world. Previous exhibitions include Passengers, held on a train ride of the eastern line of Auckland Transport service as part of Rumpus, Chez Derriere (2023), and Mass/mess, Window Gallery (2023). She lives in Tāmaki Makaurau and has an MVA from Auckland University of Technology.
Matt Joils is a painter based in Tāmaki Makaurau and his works draw from visual elements found organically online and graphic design in the urban wild. He synthesises paintings that are deeply ambivalent and at times transgressive, and has an MCP from Unitec Institute of Technology.
Sophie Sutherland (she/her) lives in Tāmaki Makaurau and has a playful practice working between sculpture, installation, experimental sound and performance. Her practice is led by themes of failure and resistance to the chaotic architecture of everyday life. She has an MVA from Auckland University of Technology. Recent exhibitions include Dorks, Lemons, Losers with Isabella Dampney, Malcolm Smith Gallery (2022) and Hot Wheels 3000, RM Gallery (2023).
