Orakei School Art Exhibition and Sale 14-16 November 2014

I'll have several works exhibited at this year's fundraiser for Orakei School including this newly framed giclee print of The Kaka is Calling (left). There is 75 prints available in this limited edition.

Tickets are available now for the gala night tonight, opening at 7:30pm (phone Jo Coutts on 027 4881456). Or, come along on Saturday 15th or Sunday 16th when the exhibition is open to viewing by the general public, times are from 9am to 5pm each day. Venue is the Orakei School Hall, Grace Street, Orakei, Auckland.

"Mahira" by Sofia Minson and Room 2 (9-10 year olds) at Orakei School. 1800 x 750mm. Mixed Media. 2014.

Nearly every year since the Orakei School exhibition first began 5 years ago, I have volunteered to create a collaborative artwork with the children, which then gets auctioned on opening night.

This year I was lucky enough to work with two of the classes to produce these two really cool hanging mixed-media artworks.

The individual canvases were painted by the children and then joined together like feathers in a cloak. I then used other materials like plaited rope, black feathers and woven flax to finish the works off. I think these artworks remind us of pacific tapa cloth, korowai or traditional maori cloaks and woven mats.

"Hiringa" by Sofia Minson and Room 6 (7-8 year olds) at Orakei School. 1750 x 750mm. Mixed Media. 2014.

A bit about the process:

In line with this year’s exhibition theme “Inquiring Minds”, I shared with the children that making art can often be a catalyst to learn something new. Art should enable you to feel free to research any topic of interest and be inspired by new places and images.

With this in mind the classes went to the library to get ideas from all sorts of books and sketch pictures and patterns, which they then painted.

I then pieced the artworks together and titled them. ‘Mahira’ means to be inquisitive and curious and ‘Hiringa’ means vitality and inspiration.