Godkin Show

Billy McQueen, Miranda Parkes, Glen Snow, Ian Peter Weston, Nicola Holden
On the Canvas and Beyond - Antoinette Godkin, 20 February - 12 March 2016

Review by John Hurrell - 12th March 2016

Nicola Holden’s single work explores reflection, the support being a hinged line of vertical rectangles. The two stretchers’ inside planes are painted with fluorescent red so that the bright colour bounces off the floor and back wall, to be deflected up through the thin white fabric stretched across them. The effect is subtle. You are not quite sure what you are looking at because from a distance you initially assume the fabric is delicately stained with a pink wash.

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Review by T.J. McNamara

The New Zealand Herald    Saturday 27th June 2015

What:   Render by Nicola Holden

Where and when:  Antoinette Godkin Gallery, Apt Y32, 30 York St, Parnell, to July 4

TJ says:   Nicola Holden makes minimal abstraction come alive.

Nicola Holden has an elegant exhibition at the Antoinette Godkin Gallery. The work is minimalist abstraction and part of the elegance is owed to the material, often watered silk or chiffon. The richness of the work lies in colour. In some cases it is capable of remarkable changes. Ultraviolet has twin surfaces which change from dense blue to rouge with a slight movement.

However, the real secret to their outstanding quality lies in their ability to respond to changes in light. Fluctuating light confers different qualities on them, sometimes reflective, sometimes a rich surface, yet always a source of enticing visual pleasure and surprise.

It Comes Down To Light- Review by T.J. McNamara

The New Zealand Herald    Saturday 15th June 2013

What:  Under, over by Nicola Holden

Where and when:  Antoinette Godkin Gallery, First Floor, 28 Lorne St, to June 22.

TJ says:  Elegant works in saturated colour that make use of the wooden support and fine, transparent cotton material to excellent effect.

…In the same class as beautifully crafted objects are the paintings of Nicola Holden at Antoinette Godkin Gallery.  These too make exceptional us of the transparency of the artist’s material and the effect of light through it.  Holden’s paintings are minimal abstractions of a special kind.

Lately, there has been a trend to lay bare the way paintings are made and mounted.  These paintings all use cotton material so fine it is semi-transparent.  This surface is attached tightly in the conventional way over the wooden framework know as a stretcher.  Because the surface cotton is so thin the stretcher can be seen through it and provides forms that modify the colour but leave geometric areas of luminous transparency. 

This method is at its simplest in blackwhitered where the frame has these colours that show through the plain material of the centre surface.  The whole system becomes much more systematic in pink/blue/orange, a triptych where the three frames play variants on those colours.

Holden’s work is delightful.  There is no story, no symbolism, just colour, light, and an insight into process.  The exhibition, titled under,over, is a very polished, quietly impressive performance by a young artist.

Reflecting Walls

With in - Antoinette Godkin Gallery, Auckland.  Caryline Boreham and Nicola Holden

REVIEW by John Hurrell – 2 August, 2012    http://eyecontactsite.com/

19 July - 8 August 2012

Caryline Boreham's elegant coloured photographs of prison, hospital and airport interiors are oddly beautiful ­ yet they disturb, profoundly. We see no people at all while observing each room's glossy grey­green walls, stark lighting and the simplest of furniture or tape barriers. The architecture, designed for easy observation, has a chilling impersonality.

In this exhibition we have a curious blending of both formal and narrative qualities, with the bringing together of a photographer and a painter who examine light on walls and the nature of coerced confinement.

Caryline Boreham’s elegant coloured photographs of prison, hospital and airport interiors are oddly beautiful - yet they disturb, profoundly. We see no people at all while observing each room’s glossy grey-green walls, stark lighting and the simplest of furniture or tape barriers. There is a creepy beauty in these clinical settings designed to restrict movement. The architecture, designed for easy observation, has a chilling impersonality while within the range of photos, some images have a pervading warmish pinkish light, others an icy grey ambience. We try to imagine the sensation of spending a lot of time in such places.

Nicola Holden’s paintings accompany Boreham’s imagery well - the latter serving as ‘holes in the wall’ setting up stories. Holden’s paintings in comparison are simple stretchers bearing translucent white cotton through which you can study the wall behind and the bars of wood supporting the thin fabric. Sometimes the inner sides of the stretcher are painted a hot fluoro orange, or else the front sides facing the viewer a dark mauve. Occasionally both colours appear together: an intense combination where the penetrating orange gains impetus from the weight of the purple.

So here Holden is throwing bright colour backwards to bounce off the white walls, or else aiming dark tones forward straight into the face of the viewer. The thin cotton seems a little porous and with the work of Boreham nearby, could even be a bandage. One set of works with four stretchers, each with its own colour on its inner bar sides, has beading on the top edges. It ensures that the taut cotton floats well clear of the front white planes that hover in front of the coloured linear rectangles.  The back reflections activate the gallery wall in a positive way. In fact compared to the bland Boreham-depicted walls these planes for exhibiting become celebratory with these gently alive paintings. The walls and paintings collaborate together, each needing the other in a symbiotic relationship.

A surprising but imaginative pairing, Boreham and Holden resonate well. Worth exploring.

John Hurrell

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