Nova Paul
PINK AND WHITE TERRACES
20 FEBRUARY - 29 FEBRUARY 2008
Gow Langsford Gallery is pleased to present Pink and White Terraces, an exhibtion of recent work by Nova Paul.
Pink and White Terraces, is a 16 mm film that reflects on the delicate construction of the domestic environments and public places in the cityscape of Auckland, New Zealand. Using an optical process technique 'three-colour separation', the film makes visual several moments simultaneously. In red, green and blue layers, colour-coded auras hold a record of time like a geological accretion. In and out of phase, actors and environment focus and fade, making palpable filmic time, and gently unfolding the politics and poetics of the sites explored.
The film is comprised of a series of static shots where the same place or action has been recorded three times, making tangible that no location is fixed, people move through space, and qualities of light and weather change. From barren trees in winter afternoon light through to a hot summer day on a front porch with friends, washing dishes at night or getting dressed to go out, shopping at a busy Sunday market to popping in to the dairy. The soundtrack by Rachel Shearer uses atmospheric sound recorded during the shoot mixed with a palette of sounds derived from the colour presence on screen, a union of the abstract and the figurative. Pink and White Terraces traces little happenings, things we do without acknowledging them as 'significant', but which collectively speak clearly about who we are individually and collectively.
Nova Paul and Heather Gailbrath. 2006
New Zealand artist Nova Paul (b.1973, Auckland) is a filmmaker of Te Uri Ro Roi and Te Parawhau /Ngā Puhi descent. Paul’s work has been included in several major local exhibitions and has featured in solo shows with the New Zealand Film Archive, Auckland, 2001 and with Ramp Gallery, Hamilton, 2002. Most recently, Paul was selected for Artspace’s New Artists Show, Martini Shot (2007) and for this developed the film, Our Future is in the Air (2007).
Pink and White Terraces is a 16mm film that was three years in the making. It showcases Paul’s pioneering technique of three colour separation, an early cinematic technique which has not been widely practiced in New Zealand. Pink and White Terraces was shown in the Telecom 2006 New Zealand International Film Festival, at Telecom Prospect 2007: New Art New Zealand, City Gallery Wellington and at The Physics Room, Christchurch.
Nova Paul holds a Bachelor of Arts from Otago University and a Master of Arts, first class honours from Auckland University of Technology. She is currently a senior lecturer at AUT, teaching art theory and moving image in the Spatial, Visual Arts and Postgraduate Departments. She is also co-editing a book titled PLACE: Local Knowledge and New Media Practice.
Pink and White Terraces will play at regular intervals within the main gallery. A selection of off-set lithographic prints will also be on exhibition.