Imogen Taylor: Sapphic Fragments

‘Sapphic Fragments’ (1 February- 28 March 2020) explores threads of research, hidden histories and new narratives that artist Imogen Taylor has been exploring over the course of her year as 2019 Frances Hodgkins Fellow.

While the title of the exhibition acknowledges Greek poet Sappho’s fragmentary and fabled existence in contemporary society as symbolic of queer histories across time, ‘Sapphic Fragments’ examines modernism through the lens of sexual identity.

Her first significant solo exhibition in the South Island, ‘Sapphic Fragments’ balances Taylor’s interest in modern art movements such as cubism, abstraction and regionalism to explore natural collisions between art and queer theory. While queerness in this context functions as the perfect medium to interrogate the material history of painting, it also subverts the historically straight status quo.

These methods can be seen in the way that Taylor often plays with the very structure of the canvas, de-straightening and creating slanted moments of disorientation that frame these multi-dimensional investigations.

Accompanying Taylor’s new works is a large-scale wall painting made in collaboration with Sue Hillery and a series of historical paintings from the Hocken’s Pictorial Collection by artists Frances Hodgkins, A. Lois White and Dorothy K. Richmond. A limited edition exhibition catalogue published by the Hocken featuring new writing by acclaimed author Joanne Drayton and curator Milly Mitchell-Anyon and designed by Ella Sutherland is also available for purchase from the Hocken and the Hocken’s on-line shop.

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