Rachel Smith
Writer
JOURNALISM
It's a Tongpop World
Telly Tuita is centre stage. To his left, The Immortal Tango of Love & War - Mars, the Roman God of War, and Venus, the opposing God of Love - in pop culture hues, the shine of ribbons and lycra set before Hikuleʻo, Tongan goddess of the world. In front of Tuita, a crowd has gathered for his artist talk at the 2023 Aotearoa Art Fair.
Image - Turama Photography
Reuben Paterson - All These Precious Things
Thirty years of creating; it is a lifetime of work for artist Reuben Paterson. “I think about my practice as having a life - I’ve described it as being my longest relationship. I adore and love this relationship very much,” he said.
Image 'The Only Dream Left' City Gallery Wellington - Te Whare Toi, 2023
An Art Journey to Venice
It began with an email that Ben Bergman almost skipped over. “I saw this weird headline and I thought it was just spam. I had my finger on the delete button and then I decided I should take a look at it,” he says.
Escape Magazine of the Cook Islands, Issue 32
Pick of the Bunch
With blooms and buds of striking colour and shape, paeonies arrive in a bluster of corals, pinks, whites, yellows and reds into the late spring and early summer garden. Their visit is short and vibrant.
Of Faith and Patience
Five days before the exhibition opens, the 12 works which make up A Diasporic Pulse of Faith & Patience are hung in Bergman Gallery. It is the first time that artist Andy Leleisi’uao has seen them all laid out; the first time in many months that he has seen them at all. It is a return to old friends that are intensely familiar and yet seen through fresh eyes.
Image - A Diasporic Pulse of Faith and Patience Panel 1, Bergman Gallery
Billy Apple in Rarotonga
There is a world that could be written about Billy Apple, as much perhaps as the 60 reams of A4 paper printed back to back that it would take to publish his genome – the complete set of his DNA.
Image - Billy Apple, Frieze. Bergman Gallery
Funky Produce
It's a still, sunny day up the back of Avatiu Valley. Perfect bee weather.
Takitumu Conservation Area - Going on Bird Hunt
The Kākerōri, Rarotongan Flycatcher, is an unassuming little bird. It is also a renowned conversation success story.
Escape Magazine, Issue 28, 2018
Vive la Revolucion!
The wheels are turning on a campaign to help Christchurch reclaim the title of "Cycle City"
How Does Your Garden Grow
There is a secret recipe in bringing people together. It is the passion to follow through on a great idea, and the overarching knowledge that the outcome will always be better if a community works as one.
Images - Rachel Smith and supplied
Sailing Cold Waters - Stewarts Gully Sailing Club
The water changes from a cold blue green to milkshake brown as feet and trolleys trundle down the ramp, across the baked mud and into the water.
Images - Rachel Smith
A nod to Victoriana & Industrial workwear
Karen Walker shines. It is in her eyes when she talks of her work as a designer and as she tells the story of her spring/summer collection, The League, and it is the shine of diamante clusters on the cosy Dries Van Noten jumper she is wearing.
Retail precinct comes to life
To be a part of designing the city you live in is a rare opportunity. Through chance or fate, this is the position Jasper van der Lingen and the team at Sheppard & Rout Architects find themselves in.
