This new body of work came about after a reading of The White Book by Hang Kang, which opens with a list of white things. Strangely familiar, this resonated with an earlier artwork of Mary-Louise�s: Off-white pages, a handmade publication, created in the apartheid era of the 1980s, listing dictionary meanings given to white. The new works may be seen as over-scaled books with the title projected on a curtain, a cinematic sleight of hand with the curtains waiting to be opened to the politic hidden behind.

Mary-Louise has been working at the forefront of text-based conceptual practice in New Zealand for over 30 years. Using text in lieu of imagery, her work speaks to the visual while refusing the prevalence of images and their authority over contemporary imagination. She has an impressive history of exhibitions and has created several permanent art works in public places in Auckland and Wellington.