Christchurch gallery owner Jonathan Smart (left) is
displaying top-end New Zealand artworks at Toi o Tahuna
Fine Art Gallery, in Queenstown, from today, after his new
gallery was ruined in the Canterbury earthquake. Mr Smart
hangs rescued abstract "Bounder" (2010), by Christchurch
artist Miranda Parkes, with Toi o Tahuna manager Andrew
Geffrey before the opening. Photo by James Beech.
A Queenstown art gallery has come to the rescue of a new
Christchurch gallery destroyed in the magnitude 7.1 earthquake
which struck Canterbury on September 4, just before the owner
was set to move in.
Toi o Tahuna Fine Art Gallery hosts Taking Stock, an
exhibition of 20 diverse paintings, sculptures and
photography by a dozen top-end established and emerging New
Zealand artists who are represented by Jonathan Smart
Gallery, of Christchurch.
Mr Smart will give a free talk to the public about the
artists and their works, many of whom may be unfamiliar to a
Wakatipu audience, he said.
Mr Smart said he had been in the process of moving his
business from his self-titled gallery of 23 years, on
Christchurch's High St, to larger premises on Salisbury St.
His wife and their two teenaged children were to live in the
residence above the new gallery.
However, Mr Smart checked on his new almost completely
refitted Salisbury St gallery about noon on the day of the
quake only to find a gaping hole where a bedroom wall used to
be and "terrible cracks" down the facade of the standalone
building.
Mr Smart said the council had ordered the landlord to
demolish the gallery building by the end of January.
Toi o Tahuna owner Mark Moran said he thought about the
situation facing Christchurch gallery owners when the quake
hit.
Toi o Tahuna manager Andrew Geffrey spotted Mr Smart's
photographs of the wrecked gallery on his website and they
decided to reach out to him, Mr Moran said.
Mr Smart said the exhibition title was a pun on Mr Smart
taking stock from the Garden City to Queenstown and it also
referred to the emotional process for him and his family
after the quake.
"I've just opened a temporary space at 115 England St and
I'll be there for a year while I find and refit new
premises," Mr Smart said.
"Back on the horse - there's plenty of work to do."
• Taking Stock opens at Toi o Tahuna Fine Art Gallery
today, 5.30pm to 7.30pm. Free talk by Jonathan Smart at 6pm.
The exhibition runs until January 11.
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