“Heartland”, Trevor Moffit Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore “Heartland” is a generous exhibition of works by Trevor Moffit from the Eastern Southland Gallery Collection. Focusing on regional paintings, from the Hokonui Hills in central Southland and up to the Rakaia River in Canterbury, this exhibition showcases several key series by the artist, from the 1960s through to the late 1990s. Moffitt’s distinct expressionist and narrative approach draws the viewer into a series of rich stories completed over significant durations. An early series, titled “The Gold Miners” began in 1962 and was based on the Waikaia Goldminers of the artist’s childhood hometown: on show are works from 1966 and 1978. The exhibition includes nine works from the series “My Father’s Life”, from around 1980. A substantial series of 139 works in total, the paintings selected for exhibition depict moments of work — cutting edges of a lawn, or packing crates with a sack barrow — and a moment of tenderness in an image of homecoming. In the last decade of Moffitt’s life, he worked on a series titled “Hokonui Moonshine” about Southland’s Temperance Movement and the moonshine that was produced in the Hokonui Hills. Generally privileging the figure in the landscape, Moffitt’s work about memory, local myth and storytelling is featured here through an accessible imagery that captures the heart of ordinary moments. see capBarrie Cooke’s “Fishing the Karamea River” (2004), oil on canvas. Photo: Eastern Southland Gallery “Tying Traditions Together: Art, Poetry and Fresh Water Angling” Eastern Southland Gallery, Gore “Tying Traditions Together: Art, Poetry and Fresh Water Angling” is a group exhibition that features a range of visual and literary works on a dynamic theme. The work is about the region of Murihiku, place, environmental stewardship, the interplay of poetry and visual work, angling and an Eastern Southland Gallery tradition of inviting and exhibiting creative engagement with the local Mataura River. An aspect of the exhibition is shared, through the work of Irish painter Barrie Cooke, with an internationally concurrent exhibition “Living Water: Poetry, Art and the Fight for Clean Rivers”, at the University Library at Pembroke College in Cambridge, England. There, Cooke is on show with poets Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. Here, five works by Cooke, featuring the Clutha, the Mataura and the Karamea Rivers, are on show alongside key works by local artists from the gallery’s collection, Marilynn Webb and Trevor Moffitt, and others, Janet de Wagt, Paul McLauchlan, Jo Ogier, Barry Cleavin and Errol Allison. Poetry by Cilla McQueen, Brian Turner, Bill Manhire complete the exhibition. The poetry is placed in conversation among the visual works, highlighting thematic and place-based connections through the works. For example, McQueen’s poem, Synthesis, to Marilynn, Ralph, Hone, features the Mataura River and sits next to Mataura Valley works by Webb from the mid 1990s. see capFelix Harris’s “Cats Cradle” (2026). Photo: Joanna Osborne “Delicious Complicity”, Felix Harris, Bertha Gallery Spanning works on paper from 2018 to recent 2026 paintings, “Delicious Complicity”, by Felix Harris, is vibrant survey show that offers a respectable overview of the artist’s practice over the last decade. Harris’ work has a characteristically refreshing treatment of colour and a poetic sensibility, drawing on textual snippets, quotes or combinations of word play and imagery. To inform and sustain an imaginative depth, Harris draws on a range of influences from across the arts: painters Marlene Dumas to Andre Butzer; writers Charles Bukowski, Roland Barthes, Gabor Mate and Ann Quin; and filmmakers, with a recent interest in Justine Triet, for example. Across the works, in text or image, are small hidden associations and acknowledgements, cultural reference points or insights. There is an emotional immediacy for the viewer in a lot of Harris’ work. Lines of text and image become universally relatable, loose or searching. Shared experiences or laments can be broadly humanitarian or privately held. Seemingly small errors, marks or tears in the works add to this emotive quality, valuing an honesty and straightforwardness, I reckon. And the sustained use of fluorescent colour is always visually rewarding, with a deeply enjoyable combination of warm red, orange and hot pink, for example.
![Trevor Moffitt\\u2019s \\u201CCutting Edges [My Father\\u2019s Life Series]\\u201D (1980), oil on board. Photo: Eastern Southland Gallery](https://images.odt.co.nz/view/acePublic/alias/contentid/1t0kp2h0fhkpepoyqdq/0/copy-of-trevor_moffitt_cutting_edge-jpg.webp?f=3%3A2&q=0.75&w=3840)
