Paintings | Vicki Mangan

The Piercing Land at Chambers Gallery, Christchurch 2024

This series of works are not paintings of a place, they are flickers of memories of a glimpse from the corner of my eye while driving back home through the Lewis pass. We are all pierced through by the land which grounds us. The rivers, hills and rocks of Tairawhiti Gisborne and Otautahi Christchurch have sunk deep and the landscapes I paint have become a reflection of my interior world. Time overlays memories, obscuring them and distancing them from the originally perceived reality. Even when physically present the eye captures glimpses and restrings them together. When we remember, it is that collection we recall and draw in our mind.

Spring Show 2024, Eastside Gallery, Christchurch, NZ

Searching for ways to integrate my painting and printmaking practices has recently led to an exploration of drypoints printed on mulberry and rice papers using cold wax medium and paint layers onto board. The wax gives each layer of paper a transparency which allows glimpses of colour and ink to show through, echoing physical layers in the landscape.

Leaden Waters at Chambers Gallery, Christchurch 2023

My father was a surveyor and road engineer, so growing up in Tairawhiti Gisborne inevitably engendered a strong awareness of Aotearoa New Zealand’s vulnerability to flooding. Studies in Literature and Geography have combined with my more recent BFA (Hons) to enrich my art practice, which includes painting, printmaking and poetry. These latest works are part of an ongoing series of paintings exploring palimpsest - where traces of ‘ground’ are glimpsed through layers of paint/waters. The oil covers a base of acrylic and medium, and is then rubbed, scumbled, removed and added to to create a range of textures and mark making, where the ground is abstracted and the passages between also become the subject of the work.