Exhibitions » Exhibition Archive » Hirschfeld Gallery Archive » Following the Blue Ribbon : Recent work by Gerda Leenards
Following the Blue Ribbon : Recent work by Gerda Leenards
27 November 2009 - 24 January 2010 in the Hirschfeld Gallery
China’s Li River has often been referred to in poetry as ‘the blue ribbon.’ This exhibition drew on Wellington painter Gerda Leenards’ 2008 research trip to China’s Guangxi province, supported by the Asia NZ Foundation. On her return to New Zealand the artist painted a series of works on canvas and antique screens, which were shown in a solo exhibition at Mark Hutchins Gallery in April 2009. Following the Blue Ribbon was a new cycle of works which develop from her earlier images of China.
The Michael Hirschfeld Gallery exhibition installation aimed to evoke the experience of sailing along the Li and Yulong (a smaller tributary of the Li) Rivers. A sequence of fifteen narrow canvas panels lined the long side walls of the gallery, hung low to emphasise the continuous horizon line and create a panoramic frieze. The progression of connected but slightly separate panels suggested time gone by – or time as it goes. In these images the Karst mountain ranges which line the bank are reflected in the river’s limpid surface, creating an atmosphere which is deeply still and contemplative.
Depictions of the mountainous landscape which surround the 100km reach of the Li River appear throughout Chinese literature and visual art. Figurative descriptions have been attributed to many of the forms, and Gerda recalls the extended conversations that took place around the ‘Painted Nine Horses’ and other shapes identified in the contours. Her images re-presented these forms in an abstracted painted vocabulary, appearing strangely recognisable to some viewers familiar with her landscape images of Fiordland in New Zealand.