Fiona Pardington at City Gallery

Fiona Pardington,
A Beautiful Hesitation City Gallery,
Wellington Until November 22
Fiona Pardington, In My Dreaming I Saw Suite Gallery
Until August 29

What is this Beautiful Hesitation? The title of Fiona Pardington’s survey show at City Gallery frames the beginning and conclusion of the photographic process. At the beginning it is the decisive hiatus when the photographer finally framed and chose an image just before the picture is taken and then there is that moment when we look at a photograph and realise that it is more than a mere snapshot, that the photographer has captured something that has depth and meaning for us.

It is that beautiful hesitation for the artist and the viewer, which adds a new dimension, captures an emotion, links multiple ideas and raises the photograph to an artwork. This hesitation, moment of truth and sudden awareness is present in the photographs of Fiona Pardington in her huge survey show at Wellington’s City Gallery where we also find the photographer herself intruding into the subject and our perception of them.

Her work has always seemed to have a personal connection to family, friends and taonga. Where she embarks on other explorations, the images always relate to her personal, social, cultural and political concerns. This means that the exhibition can be read as slowly evolving body of work in which the artist explores her personal, spiritual, physical and moral environment.

The exhibition has a group of early photographic works, with images of herself and family, including several of her grandmother who featured in some of her major later works.

Throughout the exhibition there are other figure studies, which include her children, partners and friends.

In some of her more recent works she creates upside down images of almost mythical Maori, which owe something to the German artist Georg Baselitz’s upside down portraits. Linked to these photographs of family is the group of Hei Tiki which are presented as members of her extended historical family rather than as ethnographic studies.

Even some of the studies of birds appear to be considered as acquaintances as much as mere studies. Tui Mountain, a photograph of a tui from the rear, looks more like a cloaked human form than a bird. The central gallery has been turned into a small version of a classical European museum with dark blue painted walls, the works in heavy black frames so they look like old master still life works. A couple of these have been printed on to a gesso ground, the ink permeating the surface so that they do not have to be glazed and so look like meticulously painted works. Even with these works can be found a personal connection with one of the works featuring a small handwritten note to the artist, along with a greenstone pendant being gifted to her.

The show includes one of the biggest collections from her “one Night of Love series, which are based on a collection of negatives she found. The series of soft porn images of women were rejected by magazine editors. One of the works has been enlarged and fixed to the floor, forcing viewers to walk over this rejected person. The gallery has further used images from this series on a large billboard advertising the exhibition.

To coincide with opening of the Fiona Pardington exhibition at City Gallery Wellington’s Suite Gallery is showing “In My Dreaming I Saw”, an extensive collection of the photographer’s hei tiki works including carved works in greenstone and bone.

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