Quake victims remembered in artwork at Venice Biennale

Darryn George
Personal Structures
Palazzo Bembo
Venice Biennale
June 1 - October 6

While New Zealand has a major presence at this year's Venice Biennale with Bill Culbert there two other Kiwi artists, Darryn George and Scott Eady, will be showing in related exhibitions as part of the five-month event.

Darryn George will have a work showing in the exhibition Personal Structures in Palazzo Bembo. This large palace adjacent to the Rialto Bridge was the site of an exhibition using the same name for the 2011 biennale in which the New Zealand artist Judy Millar had a large work.

Personal Structures is a privately funded project which aims to introduce international artists in writing, images and exhibitions who are considered by the curators to have much in common with their intentions. The exhibition is designed to trigger communication with, and among, the artists and to offer them a forum.

Darryn George’s work, which he has tentatively called Folder Room, will transform one of the spaces of Palazzo Bembo into a wharenui-like space of contemplation and reflection.

The proposed design is based on filing cabinet folders repeated again to fill a room. It also connects with a commisssion he completed last year at the Connells Bay Sculpture Park on Waiheke island.

He says: "The folders, for me, originally related to the lives lost in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake. However, within an international context the folders take on wider associations of knowledge stored, history, information, etc."

The work is will made here and freighted to Palazzo Bembo, where it will be installed by a New Zealand builder.

Drawing from his Nga Puhi heritage, Darryn George often works with, or references, the physical structures of wharenui in his painting. There is often social content hidden or disguised under layers of paint, patterns and colour.

With a unique style of geometric abstraction, he incorporates pop art colours and a host of influences from popular culture to Maori kowhaiwhai. 

Recent works feature the conventional palette of red, white and black generally associated with customary Maori art.

Referencing both representational systems and Western traditions of abstract painting, the work generates allusions to spiritual presence or a sense of transcendence from the material, particularly through the optical rhythm of the pieces.