FROM THE DEPTHS: Marion Macartney explores psychology in her surrealist paintings.
Artists Open Studios Whanganui begins this weekend. Reporter Anne-Marie McDonald talks to some of the artists who are exhibiting for the first time.
The women in Justine Godsall's art come in all shapes, sizes, ages and colours. There are young and old, Maori and Pakeha, small and large, healthy and those suffering from illness.
Ms Godsall is a self-described "tarot junkie" who began making tarot decks and oracle cards after several brushes with cancer.
"When I was 33 I was diagnosed with cervical cancer and had treatment for that. Then a year later I was diagnosed with breast cancer."
The illness and its treatment meant that Ms Godsall had to give up her job as a wedding photographer because she had trouble holding the camera for long periods of time.
A graphic designer by training, Ms Godsall found a job as a designer. But her job was not satisfying, and she decided to devote herself to her art.
Ms Godsall, who is originally from Central Otago, moved to Whanganui from Palmerston North about a year ago. She moved here because she wanted to be closer to family.
"Whanganui's a great place. It has a good arts community and just a really nice feel to it.
"I want to be self-sufficient and I'm able to give something back in a positive way. I'm living the dream, really."
Ms Godsall has a studio in the Ladies Rest building in St Hill St, and it's there she will be selling copies of her oracle deck, "Song of my Heart", during Artists Open Studios. She will also be selling individual cards from the deck in the form of blank greeting cards, prints, journals and notebooks.
"Song of my Heart" features 25 paintings of women with imagery of New Zealand draped over or tattooed on their skin. Each one contains an affirmation such as "I follow my heart: like a rainbow trout I choose to move against the current so I can move forward."
The oracle deck even references her own battle with cancer. One card shows a woman with a tattoo of a heron on her shoulder and the scar from a mastectomy on her chest.
The affirmation reads: "I live with eternal hope: I believe I can endure great sorrow and emerge stronger through any transformation."
Another card features the Whanganui River.
Ms Godsall said it was very important to her that the women depicted were varied and not just the "standard" beauty.
"I want it to be women-positive. If I can boost women's confidence by showing diverse women, then that makes me happy."
"Song of my Heart" is not the traditional full tarot deck of 72 cards - yet. Ms Godsall is releasing the deck in stages, with the next 10 cards to feature women with bird tattoos.
"A lot of people don't want to pay $80 for a full deck, but they're happy to $25 for a pack of 10 cards."
The process of producing the cards is lengthy. Ms Godsall begins with a drawing, which is then inked and scanned so she can work on them on-screen.
+Ms Godsall's work can be found at handmethatpencil.com.
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Marion Macartney's art studio enjoys a level of visibility that most other artists can probably only dream of.
Surrealist paintings of people and landscapes draw people in to Ms Macartney's studio and gallery on Victoria Ave, just up the road from the Big Orange.
"I do get a lot of foot traffic because of the location. It's really nice to have a studio surrounded by the bustle of town," she said.
However, she only does oil paintings at her home studio, because of the smell, while her drawings and acrylics are produced at her Victoria Ave studio.
Ms Macartney's surrealist subject matter comes from her interest in Jungian psychology.
"I like to go deeper than what's on the surface. I do paint a lot of people - figures always seem to creep in to my paintings. My style is often naive."
Ms Macartney spent seven years in Whanganui as a child, then moved away. She returned to Whanganui five years ago after 25 years in the Wairarapa.
"I moved back because it was cheap to live here."
The move proved to be serendipitous for Ms Macartney, who is a landscape gardener by trade.
"I decided it was time to devote myself to art. It was something I'd wanted to do for years and years. I'd taken art at school, but wasn't accepted into art school."
After doing the foundation certificate in art at Whanganui UCOL, Ms Macartney enrolled in a bachelor of fine arts at UCOL.
"The day after I enrolled UCOL announced it wasn't accepting any more BFA enrolments, so that was the end of that idea."
Instead Ms Macartney studied through the Learning Connexion, which she describes as a fantastic experience.
+Ms Macartney's work can be found at www.facebook.com/marionmacArt.
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Where others might see junk, the four artists exhibiting at the Whanganui resource recovery centre during Artists Open Studios Whanganui see potential.
Glen Macmillan, Jutta Humpfer, Pat Spriggens and Becka-Lee Briggs will all bring their unique style of recycled art to the Re*purpose=Re*life exhibition.
The exhibition is being hosted by Sustainable Whanganui.
Graham Pearson, from Sustainable Whanganui, said the idea for the exhibition began when he saw Mr MacMillan's work at Gallery On Guyton.
"I got talking to Glen, and found out his work was made entirely from recycled materials. Since the resource recovery centre is all about recycling, we thought it would be a good idea to have a recycled art exhibition here."
The striking centre of Mr Macmillan's work is "Saw Like An Eagle" - a life-size replica of the now-extinct Haast eagle. The work is made entirely of old saw blades.
"I stopped counting at some point; but there would be at least 350 hours of work in this piece," Mr Macmillan said.
By contrast, some of Ms Briggs' recycled fibre work took just five minutes to make.
Her work has a particular connection to the resource recovery centre as many of the materials she's used were sourced at the resource recovery centre.
"It's all about the materiality of the work - really hands-on making, inspired by nature," Ms Briggs said.
Ms Humpfer also uses fibre in her work - a particularly type of fibre: pantyhose.
Her eye-catching abstract art is made even more striking when you realise that it is made entirely of pantyhose. She stretches the material over board then frames it.
"A good friend of mine in the King Country was a seamstress. Her mother was one of those people who couldn't throw anything away, so when she died I was given her boxes and boxes of old pantyhose."
Ms Humpfer didn't dye the material - it's all in its original colour - but in some of the works she has paired the pantyhose with other recycled materials such as bubble wrap.
Mr Spriggens is a plumber by trade, but uses old pieces of wood and copper pipe to create his gate-like pieces. Much of the wood he uses is matai from old houses.
"In my work I see a lot of stuff that people think is just rubbish."
Mr Pearson asked that visitors to Re*purpose=Re*life park on the street as the resource recovery centre will be operating as usual during both weekends.
+Find out more about the artists at www.sustainablewhanganui.org.nz.
+For the full Open Studios programme visit www.openstudios.co.nz.
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