Aotearoa Art Fair

1 - 4 May, 2025 Viaduct Events Centre, Tāmaki Makaurau

mothermother is returning to the Aotearoa Art Fair with a presentation of work by three generations of artists.

Philippa Blair (1945 - 2025) with her wildly sumptuous expressionist painting that will continue to inspire many ~ Vale Philippa; Tori Beeche, whose nostalgic paintings probe image archives interwoven with memory and imaginings that reflect her Scandinavian heritage; tactile sculpture by Caitlin Devoy combining humour with the erotic and explosive politics of the body; Inga Fillary, whose mud and clay works relinquish control over outcomes, embracing uncertainty and contingency as a feature of reality; Nat Tozer, whose buried canvases observe decay and earth based processes; and the gritty omens on paper by Anouska Wallis-Lewis.

To honour artists; the world’s artists build, and live in, we're delighted to share that Jessica Pearless has crafted a collection of bespoke Wearable ABSTRAXIONS - a series of tunic-style garments to adorn this years group of mothermother artists exhibiting at the Aotearoa Art Fair. The artists, along with Pearless, will each wear one of her exquisite tunics at the Opening Night Thursday 1st May 5-9pm, invoking the spirit of a divine happening.

A key concept of Jessica's artistic practice is the concept of the artist as ‘a seeker, searcher or archiver of knowledge in search of self realisation and understanding of the world’.  While the fabric works take on the form of a garment at the happening, Jessica considers each work a painting - created under the same conditions that her geometric abstract paintings are realised - to illustrate the realisation of a personal search for logic and understanding of the state of being or the experience of knowing through abstraction.  

Created with a nod to historical fashion, they are reminiscent of Emilie Flöge's loose fitting and free flowing garments she designed in the early 1900s. Flöge revolutionised the way women dressed with rebellious new silhouettes, ornate fabrics, and exquisite detailing with sensuous complexity that inspired Gustav Klimt, who in turn immortalised into paintings. In referencing Flöge, Jessica honours the essence of the shapeshifter, the muse, the entrepreneur and the Avant Garde in this series, which runs parallel to her ongoing investigation into abstraction in art and women’s place within it.