Kirk Nicholls (left) and Bill Milbank in front of Di ffrench's works at the WHMilbank Gallery. Photo / Mike Tweed
Kirk Nicholls (left) and Bill Milbank in front of Di ffrench's works at the WHMilbank Gallery. Photo / Mike Tweed
Works by the late Di Ffrench, considered to be one of New Zealand's most innovative performance and photographic artists, will soon be on display at the WHMilbank Gallery.
Ffrench, who died in 1999, was widely known as a fierce feminist artist, and her photographic works allowed her female subjects tobe self determining and provocative on their own terms. She often used her own naked body in her work, taking the poses she had learned from martial arts.
The large cibachrome photographic works on show were conceived and executed in the 1980s and 1990s, and ffrench's son Kirk Nicholls said they came from three different series.
"They were brought down from Auckland and put into storage, and so we picked out some works that we thought would look good in this space," Nicholls said.
"I hadn't seen these pieces for 20 years, and when we took them out they were still so vibrant and intense.
"These days you would do this kind of thing with a computer, but this is all organically created, so it's kind of like the predecessor to the digital look that people are used to."
Nicholls said ffrench had been a performance artist in the 1970s and 1980s.
"At a certain stage she wanted to make more permanent objects, so her artwork was an extension of her performances.
"I always knew the types of things that she gravitated towards, and so occasionally I'd come across things in magazines and books.
"I'd cut them out and show them to her, and she'd use them."
Gallery owner Bill Milbank said he had been astounded by the "freshness" of Ffrench's works.
"When we pulled them out and put them on the walls, it was incredible," Milbank said.
"In the current art market, and to those who are working with computers and generating images, this could be a revelation."
ffrench would place sculptural objects on the floor, overlay them with pure pigment colours and then project images against the tableau, photographing the result.
Renowned Kiwi artist Di ffrench. Photo / Supplied
The works range from small personal portraits of artists to large and vividly coloured cibachrome prints, and Nicholls said ffrench combined sculpture, painting and photography to create them.
"They're not just photographs, they're hybrids of these three art forms.
"I was a model in a lot of her works, usually in a hood or something, and I used to help to set up the floor of her studio with all the sacks of ash and coal and bits of pavement.
"She had a big tower with her camera and a slide projector at the top, and she'd project the images onto the surface.
"She liked to work at night, and I was her technician or assistant."
Milbank said he hoped the exhibition would be toured once its run in Whanganui had come to an end.
"A compact show like this could be brought to a number of other institutions, and that idea is really worth exploring.
"It's that time lag of her doing what people now are doing."
The Di Ffrench: Suite exhibition runs from Wednesday, July 1, to Saturday, August 1, at the WHMilbank Gallery at 1 Bell St. Open hours are Wednesday to Saturday, midday to 3pm.
To make an appointment outside these hours, phone Bill Milbank on 027 628 6877.
