PLAY
15 August to 30 August 2025
What is play? Play is thinking, moving and forming without limitsor goals. Play is simple and cheerful, play is dangerous and threatening. Play is about ignoring boundaries, exploring the innermost and hidden recesses of our imaginations.
PLAY is an in-depth look at materials exploration, including new uses for existing materials, recycling and up-cycling, and the rise of bio-materials in creative practice. PLAY asks us to look away from conventional ideas about what constitutes art. While the act of play and experimentation with materials evokes a sense of lighthearted joy, the artworks that emerge from this process can also confront darker and more sombre themes, reflecting a complex interplay between creativity and the human experience.
By way of embracing and promoting the importance of play in creative practice leading , Matter held a workshop, ‘The Play Exploratorium’ prior to the opening of the Exhibition. This workshop was kindly funded by a grant from Creative Bay of Plenty and TECT. Some of the outcomes of the workshop were exhibited in the project space of the gallery. Click the button to learn more about the workshop and the outcomes.
The Artists
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Kim Fifield | Surrender
Kim Fifield’s practice centres around eco-philosophy and new materialism – a field of philosophical inquiry informed by science, philosophy, feminism, and cultural theory. Motivated by the potential of art to inspire new ways of thinking and acting in the world, she employs an innovative approach, exploring the intersection of art and science. Play and experimentation is essential to her practice and she engages in ongoing research to develop and integrate alternative, eco-friendly materials.
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Lynette Fisher | Bláthfhleasc
Lynette Fisher’s art practice encompasses painting, printmaking, drawing and assemblage, which she regularly exhibits in solo and group shows throughout Aotearoa New Zealand. Lynette’s work investigates themes of adoption, guardianship and ownership - appropriating existing imagery and re-placing it in awkward and re-imagined worlds. While an underlying sense of nostalgia usually permeates her work, it is disrupted by tensions around how the past and the present traverse space, time and identity.
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Nadia Marychurch | Toroa
Nadia Marychurch is interested in creating works that capture the Māori understanding of time and whakapapa, where past, present, and future coexist, are in constant conversation, and where whakapapa weaves itself into the living fabric of her making. Nadia’s research explores connections to land, lineage, and collective memory as well as cultural hybridity (Māori & Scottish). Her making process is both physical and spiritual - each stage is intentional, from gathering materials to preparing, reconfiguring, and stitching them into new forms. There are protocols and methods that she follows, which are informed by tikanga.
PLAY
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Opening Night
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PLAY • Opening Night •
15 August 2025
