Howick artist Estelle Ruijne opens her debut exhibition today at Uxbridge Arts and Culture.
The Howick College student’s exhibition, Metamorphōsis, reflects on the transformative and fluid nature of the human experience through a series of paintings and accompanying poetic works.
Curator of the exhibition, Uxbridge’s visual arts coordinator Zoë May, describes the new body of work as “a collection of paintings that explore the confusion, discomfort and uncertainty that often comes with growing up”.
Speaking about her new work, Ruijne comments that “poetry and art have been two big parts of me, two sides of the same sort of expression”.
She describes her poetry as conveying the internal, while her painting conveys the external – each explored in the exhibition’s themes of rebirth and authenticity.
Completing Year 13 studies, Ruijne has had a longstanding love of art with plans to follow her passions and pursue a Bachelor of Visual Art double majoring in painting, printmaking and drawing, and communication design at AUT after graduating from Howick College.
The exhibition is part of a new initiative at Uxbridge to showcase the artistic talents of young east Aucklanders.
Supporting young artists through the practical exhibition making experience, the programme engages with high school and tertiary level students to develop an exhibition in collaboration with Uxbridge staff.
Imagined as a first step into the world of exhibition making, the experience is designed to provide exposure to professional gallery processes and accelerate the artist’s practice close to home.
Reflecting on the months spent developing her exhibition, Rujine says: “It’s a lot to wrap your head around but working with Zoë has helped the exhibition making process seem less daunting.”
Uxbridge director, Paul Brobbel, says: “Providing young artists with the experience of making an exhibition from the inside out is our goal here, so that they can do so in their community and have some of the skills in hand when bigger opportunities come their way in the future.”
Ruijne joins Elam School of Fine Art student and Macleans College alumni Eve Boermans in this year’s programme.
Boerman’s exhibition, Threads, featured at Uxbridge from March 23 to June 1, with more than 20,000 visitors experiencing the project.
Metamorphōsis will be on display on Uxbridge’s concourse wall exhibition space until January 26.
Artists interested in taking part in the initiative during 2025 can email enquiries to visualarts@uxbridge.org.nz
