Past Exhibition

Wenerei 1 Pēpuere -
Hātarei 4 Māehe

Wednesday 1 February -
Saturday 4 March

2017

What you see looking close is not what you see from afar. — Motoko Kikkawa, *Shortsighted Girl's Very Thick Wall*, 2017.

Shortsighted Girl's Very Thick Wall takes its cue from Kikkawa’s current interest in creating delicate, small scale drawings with watercolour and ink on paper. For this exhibition however, one new large scale installation will be presented alongside Blind Jams — paying tribute to her long relationship with Dunedin sound.

Not ever limited by any one medium or genre, Motoko Kikkawa has been working prolifically with sound, performance, improvisation, drawing, ceramics, textiles, paper, sculpture and photography in Dunedin for over twelve years. Shortsighted Girl's Very Thick Wall takes its cue from Kikkawa’s current interest in creating delicate, small scale drawings with watercolour and ink on paper. For this exhibition, she extends this process to its limits by presenting one large new installation for the Blue Oyster’s main gallery space.

Often referred to informally as one of Dunedin’s hardest working artists, Shortsighted Girl's Very Thick Wall acknowledges Kikkawa’s continual contributions to Dunedin’s local creative community and seeks to define her as one of Dunedin’s most significant experimental practitioners working today. During the exhibition, the second space will reflect this with a rotating schedule of short films and sound works by Kikkawa dating from yesterday back to 2012. Kikkawa’s Blind Jams — one performed at the opening preview and another event later in the exhibition — will also pay tribute to her long relationship with Dunedin sound; inviting six local collaborators to play blindfolded via experimental improvisation.

Click here to download room sheet

Click here to download accompanying text by Chloe Geoghegan

Motoko Kikkawa, *Shortsighted Girl's Very Thick Wall*, 2017.

Motoko Kikkawa, Shortsighted Girl's Very Thick Wall, 2017.

Motoko Kikkawa

Originally from Tokyo, Motoko Kikkawa has lived in Dunedin since 2004. She has attended Dunedin School of Art and works daily from a studio in Allbell Chambers. Currently, Kikkawa has a solo exhibition, Current Surfer at Dirt Gallery, Wellington. Kikkawa was involved in several solo and group exhibitions in Dunedin, including: Shortsighted Girl’s Very Thick Wall (2017), Unacceptable Archaeologies (2011), Always there is something behind at Inge Doesburg, Dunedin (2010), and Blue Oyster Performance Series (2010). Recent group exhibitions include: Never an Answer – 12 Abstract Painters at The Vivian, Auckland, 2018, Forms of Perception at PG gallery 192, Christchurch, 2018, and Traces at Tacit Gallery, Hamilton, 2018, New Perspectives at Artspace Auckland (2016), (dis)placement at Fresh and Fruity Gallery Dunedin (2015), and iD2K16 at Blue Oyster (2015). Sound-wise, Kikkawa is a past resident of None Gallery and has played solo and in collaboration at The Audio Foundation Auckland, The Auricle Christchurch and regularly at various independent events such as Lines of Flight.