Eastside Gallery’s First Steps 2021 showcases the work of 21 artists who are new, or fairly new, to exhibiting.

Nothing over $500.

Please visit and show your support for their fantastic work!

Opening Event: Tuesday 18 May 5.30-6.45pm

Opening Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 11am-5pm, free onsite parking.

Ka Awatea signifies daybreak, the awakening of creativity and the emergence of new voices. Creativity as a life-force is particularly resonant in a global pandemic which disrupted normal life and forced us to recalibrate. Creativity both sustained us and allowed new ways  of seeing. The pandemic also revealed new understanding of living in isolation, something that is all too familiar for some people who experience mental distress. 

Ōtautahi Creative Spaces is a specialist creative wellbeing initiative in Christchurch supporting people with experience of mental distress. We do this through studio groups, artist mentoring, collaborative projects and exhibitions. 

List of artists exhibiting:

Opening Event: Tuesday 27 April 5.30-6.45pm

Hosted by: Eastside Gallery, 388 Worcester St, Christchurch.

Opening Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 11am-5pm, free onsite parking.

Vjekoslav Nemesh has been teaching art classes for 17 years and organising group exhibitions to help promote the work of his students.

This exhibition, From the North to The South, features several emerging and professional artists that have all, at some stage of their career, attended Nemesh’s classes. Joining local artists will be some from the North Island who will be exhibiting for the first time in the South Island.

The exhibition also showcases recent work by Nemesh. He writes, “Along with my own paintings I want to showcase a variety of talented artists who I have had the pleasure to have taught over my teaching career.”

Exhibiting with Vjekoslav Nemesh:

Jayne Kitto

Kim Mehlhoft

Sandra McAlpine

Svetlana Spectra

Wendy Worley

David Barnett

Jonny Bear

Di Badham

Opening Event: Tuesday 6 April 5.30-6.45pm

Hosted by: Eastside Gallery, 388 Worcester St, Christchurch.

Opening Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 11am-5pm, free onsite parking.

Image: “Bubble” by Vjekoslav Nemesh, oil on canvas, 74 X 74 cm, 2020.

Art Escape brings together a wealth of paintings from members of the Christchurch/Canterbury Cancer Society Art Groups. These works are representative of a wide range of genres that coalesce into a joyous engagement with paint, colour, subject and theme.

“I like making art that reflects the world I see around me…having an opportunity to make something beautiful and creative.”

The Art Group provides a welcome respite for those whose lives have been adversely affected by cancer. The sessions are happy gatherings of people who come together, not so much to talk about cancer, but to discuss how they plan to develop their latest art works. The group participants are mostly quiet and focussed after the initial rush of catch-up chat. Here art engagement is a purposeful escape into a world less fraught by work or illness. Participants are supported by volunteer tutors who are Fine Arts graduates and/or qualified teachers. Often the group members have had a desire to paint in the past and are now able to find time to put more difficult issues aside and become absorbed within a meditative world of art expression.

“My art is inspiring me to release what I feel inside and that is a freedom…my freedom.”

The thorny and perennial question of ‘what is art’ is easily answered in this context. The art is in the action of coming together, sharing ideas, producing work, and in the reframing and proclaiming of identity. Making art is a mental and physical pit stop, a creative and productive respite that displaces all-consuming illness, at the same time expressing participants’ identities as artists.

“Art class at the Cancer Society…acceptance, understanding and friendships made whilst we create.”

Opening Event: Tuesday 16 March 5.30-6.45pm

Hosted by: Eastside Gallery, 388 Worcester St, Christchurch.

Opening Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 11am-5pm, free onsite parking.

Image: “Summer’s Day” by Ray Haward.