A retrospective exhibition of cartoons, caricatures and illustrations at Te Uru Public Art Gallery Auckland 6 March - 23 May 2021
On Saturday 6th of March 2021, the Te Uru Public Art Gallery, Titirangi, Auckland was to have a grand opening of three exhibitions including my retrospective cartoon exhibition Wayward Works …but…damn…a three day lockdown was announced for Auckland on the 5th of March - some stupid guy who knew he had the virus cruised around south Auckland and messed up people’s plans!!
Anyhow the exhibition opened and in place of an opening with wine, song and women I had ‘an artist’s talk’ where I encouraged people to come along with the promise of a party at my house down the road afterwards. There was a great turnout and I did my best to sound intelligent and learned, and qualified enough, to create my often politically inclined satirical imagery.
I’m told by the curator at Te Uru that the three month long exhibition was very well received with visitors coming back for second and third viewings. Organised school groups came and enjoyed the exposure to edgy satire.
Below are the wall words from the exhibition.
ANNA CRICHTON: WAYWARD WORKS
Te Uru presents Wayward works, an exciting selection of originals and work in print by local artist Anna Crichton. Over many years, award-winning satirical illustrator Anna Crichton has enhanced both New Zealand and overseas publications with her sharply drawn cartoons, caricatures and illustrations.
Having worked as an illustrator and art director in the print media industry since the 1980s, Crichton established an international reputation when she contributed regularly to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine and The Australian. In Aotearoa, she works for The New Zealand Herald, The Listener, Cuisine and Metro and more. Her work is collected by the New Zealand Turnbull Library Cartoon Archives and she is a five-time winner of the NZ Qantas/Canon Media Award for Best Editorial Artist.
Using dip pen, ink and a brush, Crichton illustrates social commentary with a satirical edge. Her work is abstract and humorous, replete with pictorial puns and metaphors that draw the reader into the article they accompany. For Crichton, there is a process to responding to an article, whether in the business, politics, food or book review pages of a publication. Visitors to this exhibition will have the opportunity to learn about this process, and be entertained and enthralled by some of Crichton’s most memorable published works.
Crichton is the author of the bestselling book Dear Virus…a cartoonist chronicles love and life in the time of Covid (2020), which is included in the exhibition.
Crichton also works as an artist and ceramicist. Her exhibition Ragpicker at 4am, which resulted from her artist residency in Varanasi India, was recently shown at Pah Homestead and Hastings City Art Gallery. In late 2020 she was an artist in residence at Auckland Studio Potters, and she was a finalist in the 2010 and 2014 Portage Ceramic Awards. Still life with moving parts, an exhibition of outsider art curated by Crichton, is now on at Hastings City Art Gallery (27 February – 9 May 2021)
A video tour around the gallery