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The T-Shirt is the medium

11Aug

Front row: Ode to the cessation of bleeding by Lesley Anne Morgan (Te Awamutu), Alternative Activities for the Addicted by Elaine Arkell (London), Love Me Knots (with twists) by Sonja van Kerkhoff (The Hague), Elephants for Peace by Elaine Arkell, T-Shirt Plastic by Maureen Baker (Whangarei Heads), Out of Sequins by Brian Harris (Auckland), De-composition (with biogradable rubberbands) by Sonja van Kerkhoff.

Te T-Shirt Show
Curated by Sonja van Kerkhoff + Virginia Guy
Hikurangi Art Station, 31 King St, Hikurangi, Northland, Aotearoa | New Zealand

Detail of T-Shirt Plastic by Maureen Baker (made out of fused plastic bags), Out of Sequins by Brian Harris, De-composition (with biogradable rubberbands)
by Sonja van Kerkhoff.

20 Artists:
Elaine Arkell (London, U.K.) | Maureen Baker (Whangarei Heads) | Hamish Oakley-Browne (Whangarei) | Susan Burgess (Christchurch) | Megan Corbett (Hikurangi) | Virginia Guy (Hikurangi) | Brian Harris (Auckland) | Dulcie Hering (Hikurangi) | Sen McGlinn (Kawakawa) | Lesley Anne Morgan (Te Awamutu) | Julia Newland (Whangarei Heads) | Benjamin Pittman (Hikurangi) | Lisa Ponweiser + Mt Hutt College students (Methven) | Jason Ratahi (Opunake) | Jacob Squire (Hikurangi) | Ursula Safar (Wales) | Te Kowhai Trust (Whangarei) | John Thomson (Hampshire, U.K.) | Raewyn Turner (Auckland) | Sonja van Kerkhoff (The Hague, The Netherlands) | Jacqueline Wassen (Maastricht, The Netherlands).

T-shirts by Lesley Anne Morgan + Elaine Arkell.
Click for a larger view.

Front row:
Ode to the cessation of bleeding by Lesley Anne Morgan. In celebration of menopause, the delicately cut out pieces were scattered on the floor underneath this. The black t-shirt behind this is ‘Arch Overload’ – Portsmouth Festival – 1990, custom made by John Thomson. (thomsonart.co.uk) and Alternative Activities for the Addicted by Elaine Arkell is next, who wrote: “Well, yes I once was a foolish smoker with teeth all stained and brown. The wrangle with nicotine was long and hard and this work came through and out of that wrangle.”

Love Me Knots (with twists)

The design for her shirt which features an original 1960s spirogragh drawing made as an ‘alternative activity’ for smoking and the T-shirt was created for the “Your Art Here (too)” on Camberwell Green, South London for Daniel Lehan’s Camberwell arts Week event in 2010. This T-shirt series also had an outing to Brighton with David Medella and the artists of the London Biennale for the project, Longshore Drift. The pink T-shirt, Love Me Knots (with twists) by Sonja van Kerkhoff is a play on materiality and sentiment with the row of rosebud knots at gut level.

Left to Right, 4th row from the front:

Click for a larger view.

Tīmatanga Kaitiaki (Protected or guided beginning, start or intro) by Jason Ratahi. A T-shirt of slogans in Māori and New Zealand English, Red by Sonja van Kerkhoff, a padded and filled T Shirt. Rabbits by Dulcie Hering. The light blue Tao Shirt by Susan Burgess has the symbol cut. The black shirt at the end of the next row is ‘seed, crop, harvest’ from the album CLAY CLASS DFA Records New York, 2012 by John Thomson, who wrote “My kinetic sculptures feature in the music videos of the U.K. band, Prinzhorn Dance School.” Next is ‘I begin I end’ What I do in between is up to me, a unique symbol screenprint by Megan Corbett while Rabbit by Dulcie Hering is a printed design sewn onto a T-Shirt.

Details of T-shirts by Susan Burgess + Raewyn Turner.
Click for a larger view.

Apron with anti-spasmodic, anti-arthritic, anti-rheumatic galbanum by Raewyn Turner is a blue T-shirt that was cut and resewn into the form of an apron with cloth sachet of perfume. In constrast to Raewyn’s repurposing of the T-shirt, Forget Us Not is purpose-made by Ursula + Alison for their rural gardening business which cares for the gardens of the oft ‘forgotten’ in our society: the elderly.