11 October 2023 

Visitors to City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi will delve into the folk horror genre when a new exhibition opens later this month.  

Eerie Pageantry brings together the work of New Zealand modernist artist Don Driver (1930-2011) and prominent contemporary Australian artist Julia Robinson, who both make art that balances dark content with exquisite beauty – a characteristic of folk horror. 

Wellington-based Curator of Screams collaborators Aaron Lister (City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi) and Dr Chelsea Nichols (The Dowse Art Museum) developed the exhibition which taps into an international interest in exploring connections between art and horror. 

“Eerie Pageantry draws remarkable parallels between the work of Robinson and Driver,” says Lister.  

“We are bringing them together as kindred practices that reach out to each other across space and time through the visual language of folk horror. Together these works form an elaborate ceremonial procession in the gallery space – an eerie pageantry of the Antipodean Gothic that nods towards The Wicker Man’s May Day parade.” 

The exhibition, which will introduce New Zealand audiences to Robinson’s work, also aims to cast new light on Driver’s place in art history.  

Lister says Driver’s interest in magic and horror has historically been downplayed, but is a source of fascination for contemporary artists.  

“It gives us an opportunity to begin exploring how his influence has been implanted in the dark psyche of a younger generation.” 

Robinson is a mid-career Adelaide sculptor who earned recognition through The Beckoning Blade, a series probing the shadows of folklore and femininity. 

Though she was unaware of Driver before being approached to be part of Eerie Pageantry, Lister says the introduction sparked Robinson’s new body of work, including a wall-based sculpture that re-uses a pitchfork and other farming implements from a decommissioned Driver work.  

Robinson traces her fascination with folk horror to her English roots. Her paternal grandparents live in Essex where witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins once conducted his “godly” business. She connects to this lineage through sewing, crocheting and costume-making techniques handed down by her mother and paternal grandmother.  

Driver’s mother was a milliner and doll-maker. Belonging to an earlier generation, he explored the conflicted Pākehā mythologies of modern Aotearoa. The dark energies of his art are drawn from rural Taranaki, where he was known to stop his car to collect roadkill to use in his work, and once advertised for goat skulls in a local newspaper.  

“The pair’s work reads like a love letter to the rural gothic, from The Wicker Man to the Kiwi folk horror masterpiece The Scarecrow.”