Artists Sage Cox and Geoffrey Heath exhibition at the Suter
Two Golden Bay artists, Sage Cox and Geoffrey Heath, are once again holding a combined showing of their works at the McKee Gallery in the Suter Art Gallery on Bridge Street, Nelson.
Their exhibition of mostly oil paintings, 15 of Sage’s and 19 of Geoffrey’s, began with an early evening opening on 7 February - attended by some 70 people - and runs until 26 February.
Sage says the title of their exhibition, A Good Place, is a reference to how artists strive to reach a moment when a painting resolves itself.
“It’s like the production of good wine, a deep-flavoured cheese or a lovingly made loaf of bread - all must be borne to a ‘good place’.”
Sages’s works continue her “Bays and Headlands” theme of the last few years, using multiple viewpoints of a location to incorporate a variety of realistic and imagined scenes of Golden Bay into the one work.
Geoffrey says the exhibition gave him the opportunity to revel in the process of working in oils again, “…the smells of paint, linseed oil and mineral turps permeating my studio. I’ve been in my element, using palette knives to apply great dollops of paint, capturing the mood of the hour, day or weather patterns - hence the title of some of my works – Thunder in the Hills, Last Night, and Approaching Southerly.”
The artist’s positive attitude is to be admired. Geoffrey, who paints from his studio adjoining his house in Haile Lane, Pohara, has experienced a wet and traumatic summer. The 14 December flood affected his house slightly, but swept through his studio, wrecking many of his sketches, notes and canvases. It also stopped him hosting his usual summer studio for visitors.
“It’s been a couple of months of digging out and tidying up,” he says. “But being able to combine painting again with a return to playing tennis, I know I really am in ‘A Good Place.’”
A Good Place runs from 8 to 26 February, daily from 10.30am to 4.30pm, at the McKee Gallery off the Suter in Bridge Street.
Gerard Hindmarsh
