Whanganui Fine Arts Gallery adds new member, new art to its collective

Kris Lott with examples of her work at Whanganui Fine Arts Gallery. Picture / Paul Brooks

Kris Lott used to look across to Whanganui Fine Arts Gallery from the UCOL building where she studied for her bachelor of design and arts.

Now she can look back from the gallery to her old third year art studio across the road.
She is now part of the Fine Arts collective, displaying her work with other accomplished artists of the gallery.

The gallery is open, as it can be under alert level 2, and people are free to wander among the range of high-quality art representative of the nine artists in the collective.

Kris is the newest member. Her work on show is mostly oil paintings of people, with some abstract work, but her talents extend beyond the canvas, from digital to ceramic.

Kris's work adds a new dimension to the work of the gallery, particularly her "portraits".

"They are my classmates as I could see them from my studio space," she says.

That would explain the unorthodox perspective and unusual not-poses. She calls them her "not portraits".

"[Joining Fine Arts] was pretty much exactly what I wanted to do ... local artists, they've got a good [Young Artists'] scholarship programme, and it's somewhere to hang my work."

The gallery has just concluded its Open Studios exhibition and a new, updated display begins this week, incorporating work from those artists who were part of other set-ups for the Artists Open Studios exhibitions around the district.

Membership of the collective remains fluid with artists coming and going, but a solid core remains from when it was set up five years ago.

With work from all members on display, the gallery covers a wide range of work in two and three dimensions and a variety of media.

Having a "place to hang their work" has allowed artists to explore new ways of expressing themselves, resulting in their talents taking pathways new to them and surprising to the viewer.

"We want to see friendly faces," says Kris.