PROVOCATIVE pop culture hits Masterton tonight with the exposure of religious icons to artistic irony and a Big Mac burger to slow decay.
King Street Artworks tonight mount their ninth annual public exhibition ? Things That Make You Go Hmmm? ? at the Aratoi Museum of Art and History.
The exhibition opens
at 5.30pm and features mixed media paintings, sketches, sculptures and displays completed over the past year by 35 artists working out of the Masterton-based community studio.
Included is a presentation from Artworks artist Peter Quest featuring a Big Mac bought last week, complete with a transparent plastic burger carton and the first furry stirrings of mold.
"I have been thinking about it doing a piece like this for a while and was told a McDonald's burger lasted forever because of all the preservatives," Mr Quest said.
He said his work is designed to provoke viewers with visual and literal cues taken from popular culture and the advertising media. The exhibition features mixed media works by Mr Quest in pastels, pencils, inks and acrylics.
"I bought the burger last week and if you look real close you can see something just starting to grow on it now ? it's only just started.
"It's a presentation of living art ? even if the life is just bacterial ? and people will be able to see the changes as they happen."
Fellow Artworks artist Brent Bartram is also aiming to provoke viewers with his contribution to the show that includes natural scenes, a self-portrait, an interpretive view of the Castlepoint Lighthouse in "brick point light" and acrylic paintings centred on re-workings of Christian and pagan religious symbols.
"There is irony in the symbols and hidden things. With art you can cut through to truths that have been hidden for too long and with art you can get away with it."
Also on show at the exhibition is a miniature row of village homes in clay, papier-mache and clay sculptures, model planes and textile works.
