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BOON 2018

Ahsin - Ahsin

Ahsin – Ahsin is a Hamilton based artist inspired by 1980s animation and pop culture.
 

The artists explains, “This piece to me is paying homage to the infamous S that you might recognise, back in your youth scribbling away in the old 1B5 exercise books. There's no real evidence where or when it came from and it's still a mystery kinda like UFO's and the Bermuda Triangle all that buzzy stuff but it's been around longer than I have.

I added some characters to the windows; a dinosaur waving, robot samurai, dancing monster and the #chea dino rocking a shaka. These are recurring figures in my studio work they're just fun characters I like to draw. They are neither good or bad they are just them just like you are you and I am me.”

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Charles and Janine Williams

Charles (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tūhoe, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāpuhi) is a founding member & president of the world championship winning crew TMD (The Most Dedicated), a collective of creatives from around the world who continue to push artistic boundaries & who have been global leaders in the urban contemporary art field over the past 20 years.

Janine (Ngāti Whātua ki Kaipara, Ngāti Pāoa) is one of Aotearoas first female street artists & also a member of TMD having spent the past 20 years developing community art activations & corporate engagement projects utilising visual arts as a communication & development tool. As a Mana Whenua endorsed artist for her Tāmaki based Iwi her passion lies in creating commissioned works that reflect local narrative & stories​. Endemic/native flora & fauna themes feature in a majority of their mural designs. 

Within this masterpiece, the kārearea proudly flies over the area watching over the Waikato River below shown as the blue awa design. Sacred Taupiri Maunga is acknowledged and stands proudly as a key focal point of the concept. The desire of the artists was to honour mana whenua - Waikato/Tainui who acknowledge these entities as tūpuna (ancestors) and not just geographical locations and waterways.

Cracked Ink

Originally from the UK, Cracked Ink has been part of the NZ street art scene ever since he made the move to New Zealand in 2006.
 

Cracked Ink’s quirky, character based art is bold and eye-catching, whether it be an art piece from a gallery or a mural in the street. Si Omer AKA Cracked Ink has been involved in both street art and the art gallery scene in New Zealand. He likes to work in the moment, conducive to the medium of aerosol paint. He is interested in exploring attitude and expression. Creating a quirky character based aesthetic, strikingly monochromatic. The compositions are bold and dynamic, easily engaging the audience - a nod to his roots in Graphic Design.

What starts with a simple line, extends and evolves until the once blank wall is transformed into a world of its own. Eventually, this temporary canvas will be wiped clean, restored to a mundane white wall, so the process can begin again.

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Flox

​As an aerosol and stencil artist with a fine art degree, Flox has been making her mark on the inner cityscape of Auckland since 2003. Her trademark native birds, ferns and flowers are a celebration of Aotearoa’s environmental taonga.

 

Inspired by Hamilton Gardens’ concept garden this wall mural combines classic Flox elements of flora and native fauna using hand cut stencils. The mural pays homage to the philosophy of nature and conservation with a central pair of native birds in the form of female Huia figures. One of these now-extinct birds is ghosted in the earthy, ochre tones of tetoki, anointed by Māori on those who have died, represents past failures; while to the forefront is a fully-fledged version, the representation of future opportunities.

The piece acknowledges the aligning, conservation-based philosophies which are an integral part of her own creative practice.

Gina Kiel

Gina Kiel is an artist based in Wellington, New Zealand. She creates feminine yet strong images that exude sensuality and explore the human experience through ideas of life, death, spirituality and pop culture using flowing lines and forms and bold, minimal compositions with a psychedelic palette.

Her work created for The Meteor Theatre illustrates an expansion and connection of minds and creativity that can be achieved through the experience of performance, as a performer or an audience.

 

The faces represent masks and the flowing colour concept represents what may be beneath or behind the mask.

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Jodie

Jodi McBride

Jodi McBride is a Hamilton based artist who completed her degree in Media Arts at Wintec. With a passion for illustration, her work combines soft pastels and vibrant pop colours. She re-imagines everyday situations in quirky and playful ways.

Kell Sunshine

Kell Sunshine is a Wellington based muralist, illustrator and typographer.

 

This piece is a dream-scape of a fish out of water. The site is the external fence of the now defunct and dried up Hamilton municipal pools which were once a beloved community facility.

 

The koi-style fish are a recurring character for Kell, with this ghostly white rendition gliding through a desert sprinkled with cacti, lit by the moon, in a world without water. On a more serious level, this piece speaks to the urgent situation we are facing with respect to our waterways and oceans.

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Liam Bourton

 Liam Bourton, born in Otorohanga is currently living, and working in Hamilton. He started doing art in high school after accidentally being placed in an art class. Moving forward he took up a bachelor of media arts at Wintec.

 

His work characteristically uses geometric shapes and lines to explore the concept of simplicity and complexity. Taking the simple form of a line he transforms spaces through the process of repetition which eventually creates a complex work. 

 

Seeing how the process of making a work can be just as important as the work itself. Working on this in his artworks he creates a systematical, and mathematical approach to making art. With his headphones on, a pen in his hand, and a canvas in front of him he zones out the world, becoming absorbed in his art, and finding his happy place.

Rachel Peary

Rachel Peary is a Hamilton based artist. 

Her work is inspired by play and curiosity. This piece has no narrative. There is no hidden meaning or story. It's about adding something visually to a space and exploring relationships between colours, shapes and line. 

Rachel’s process for creating work usually starts with doing some rough paintings or drawings on paper. She then digitally recreates the paintings and plays with them on the computer. There she gets to explore plenty of options with layering shapes, sizes and colours until the image feels balanced or resolved.
 

Underwater Collective

The Underwater Collective is a collaborative group of artists from the Waikato who create object-based installations. Their artwork collides everyday icons with wild dream-scape imaginings.

Their work is pure improvisation; each artist responding to what another artist is working on. One of the key artist in this collective, Ali Selliman, is also well known as an accomplished tattoo artist and illustrator.

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