Black Books  explores the role the unconscious plays in the practice of three significant contemporary practitioners:

Lottie Conslavo
Roger Mortimer
Ramon Robertson

The exhibition takes it’s title from a collection of private journals – referred to as the Black Books – which document Carl Jung’s ‘confrontation with the unconscious’. Each artist selected for the presentation, is renowned for their exceptional skill and strong conceptual foundation – and makes work that deals with issues of memory, mindfulness and the trace of experience as it relates to the material world.

Lottie Consalvo’s quietly expressive paintings explore the intangible experiences of human psyche: imagination, dreams, memory – and their place in the real. Consalvo practice looks to give language to the physicality of the overwhelming presence of thought and the impact the mind has on all living things. She parallels these natural phenomena of the mind by investigating the human connection to nature, desire, longing, loss and the ungraspable. Recent works have seen Consalvo further extend symbols and signs that speak to our invisible worlds, communicating with messages seemingly illegible to us. Totemic like structures and cross forms represent a harmony between what is here and the place the artist calls ‘beyond the real’, propelling us to dig deeper and further our ideas around psychology, spirituality, science and the place where they intersect.

Roger Mortimer is interested in the nature of attachment in the psychological sense. When this fundamental relational need is disrupted, it generates conflict, adaptive behaviour and distress. His paintings explore these themes and have been described as “an allegorical scrambling of time and geography, that pushes at the limits of the human imagination” [1], giving rise to a dense layering of colliding or intertwined worlds and systems. He has been aptly described as ‘a contemporary visual mythologist’ and is widely recognised for his distinctive use of medieval imagery, juxtaposed with early maps of Aotearoa.  Mortimer chooses to paint maps, which are tools for location. A map provides a space within which to locate yourself and to establish connections with your surroundings. It’s a way to identify a place, and to identify yourself in relation to other points, or points of view. Like maps, these paintings cannot be viewed in a glance. It takes time to take them in. As stories, they are innately personal, yet universal.

Ramon Robertson’s work engages with elements of conformity and union between people, structure and place – with a specific focus on the human condition and its relationship to space, time, and consciousness. His recent sculptures evoke a sense of stillness and introspection, focusing on the human body and its relationship to place. Robertson’s installation, “Gravity Bay” consists of ten concrete figures, arranged in a uniform grid on the galleries floor, creating field of humanoid forms. The installation explores themes of collective identity, labour, and the relationship between the individual and the group.

[1]  John Hurrell: When Botticelli sailed to Taranaki, Eye Contact June, 2010

Contact the gallery for a complete list of works