Quiet Moments - Photographs by Rita Dibert

Quiet Moments
Photographs by Rita Dibert

14 April - 7 May 2023
LUMEN Studios & Gallery

Opening: 6pm, Friday 14 April 2023

Whanganui artist Rita Dibert will be exhibiting a series of photographs featuring flowers in memory of her mother.

"Flowers have many meanings: historical, botanical and personal. When my mother went onto the next level I started a series of flower images in her memory. This led me more out to the garden and less to the studio but I have made peace with that. I remember my mother remonstrating when my father trimmed the lilacs in the fall, she fearing they would not bloom as boisterously the next season. But of course they did: my father came from farming stock.
I myself knew very little about gardening when I embarked on my 1903 villa. I feel like I know even less now…those little info cards on the bushes, trees or plants do not always give accurate information, or at least accurate for my Whanganui microclimate. I have overplanted many areas or totally disregarded such info as that needles from that now 9 metre high pin nut tree can kill many plants trying to grow beneath their mother.
So to my mother, Lillian Jeanette Dibert, I turn over the fate of these flowers and know they will go to good homes, never to worry if they will get enough cold in the winter or water in the summer.”

Rita Dibert
April 2023

Rita holds MFA degrees in Painting & Printmaking and Electronic Media & Photography. From 1995-2015 she designed and developed the Fine Art Photography Darkrooms and curriculum at WRCP and the Quay School of the Arts, Whanganui. Rita came to New Zealand in 1995, drawn by the rarity of a nuclear free country with a social conscience. She has had a range of wonderful, talented students here and enjoyed every minute teaching them.