Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Smells like pink
12 September - 6 October, 2018
12 September 2018 - 6 October 2018


Joyous contradictions lie at the heart of Ruth Thomas-Edmond's new exhibition, Smells like pink. Here we have art wanting to take us for a walk in some imaginary urban park where brutalist architecture meets unrestrainedly fecund nature. This is not the purity of mid-20th century high art abstraction but the creation of form as a way of being in the world which encompasses all the sensory contradictoriness of that experience.

Solid forms in two and three-dimensions are layered and carefully built up brush stoke by brushstroke and cardboard square upon square. Paint in the sculptures gluing the pieces, oozing, glooping, dripping, wanting to be licked, and the structures themselves spawning abundant new growth, multifarious offspring. Paint on the paper (Thomas-Edmond's preferred smooth ground for paint) applied with her signature dabbing brushstrokes, carefully contained and built up in layers that conceal and reveal. But, like the three-dimensional forms, these forms also wander - here free-form across the roll of paper that the artist has hung uncut - in a gesture that invites the viewer to linger and select the fruit that must be cut.

Careful and casual, sensory and dry, everyday and ethereal, olfactory colour, Thomas-Edmond's third solo exhibition in the gallery offers rich and lingering contradictions.

Wellington based, Thomas-Edmond has a Master of Fine Arts from the Elam School of Fine Arts. Recent public exhibitions include Solo 2014 at the Dowse Art and How to Fall in 2013 and The Obstinate Object in 2012 at City Gallery Wellington.
Installation view 1
Installation view 1
Luminous moves
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1000 x 1000 mm
Luminous moves
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1000 x 1000 mm
Forget a terrible year
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1000 x 1000 mm
Forget a terrible year
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1000 x 1000 mm
Shaded room
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1100 x 800 mm
Shaded room
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1100 x 800 mm
Listen, float, hold hands
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1100 x 800 mm
Listen, float, hold hands
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1100 x 800 mm
Of pain and doubts - kindness will follow
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1200 x 1200 mm
Of pain and doubts - kindness will follow
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1200 x 1200 mm
Installation view 2
Installation view 2
Blowing out of my arms
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
700 x 650 mm
Blowing out of my arms
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
700 x 650 mm
Drift away instead
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1000 x 900 mm
Drift away instead
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1000 x 900 mm
Something to see
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1400 x 1300 mm
Something to see
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1400 x 1300 mm
Detours in your mind
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1400 x 1400 mm
Detours in your mind
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
acrylic on paper
1400 x 1400 mm
Installation view 3
Installation view 3
Something's coming
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
680 x 360 x 450 mm
Something's coming
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
680 x 360 x 450 mm
Laugh at the moon
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
800 x 670 x 480 mm
Laugh at the moon
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
800 x 670 x 480 mm
Sky is purple
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
830 x 380 x 480 mm
Sky is purple
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
830 x 380 x 480 mm
Bloom 1
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
240 x 160 x 110 mm
Bloom 1
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
240 x 160 x 110 mm
Bloom 2
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
240 x 230 x 210 mm
Bloom 2
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
240 x 230 x 210 mm
Anomaly 1
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
110 x 160 x 90 mm
Anomaly 1
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
110 x 160 x 90 mm
Anomaly 2
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
180 x 150 x 180 mm
Anomaly 2
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
180 x 150 x 180 mm
Anomaly 3
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
200 x 140 x 170 mm
Anomaly 3
2018
Ruth Thomas-Edmond
Recycled cardboard and plastic
200 x 140 x 170 mm