Offsite: Atrium on Takutai Square

Negative Mass

 

10 July – 7 September 2019

 

Jonathan Kay

Aotearoa New Zealand

Jonathan Kay’s work Negative Mass is an investigation of the relationships between science and art. Made with simple materials, it speaks to a poignant and layered issue we are confronted with on a global scale: the gradual melting of ice caps and glaciers in this age of climate change.

This work began its life on Takutai Square, where the fabric sheets you see here were treated with photographic chemicals to create a large-scale cyanotype. Creating a cyanotype relies on three basic things to produce an accurate analogous image: a light-sensitive surface, a light source and contact. Whatever stands or sits between the surface and light will create a negative form on the fabric – in this case, the patterns of water from the melting ice blocks that were placed on the sheets in Takutai Square, a memory of the solid objects that once were there.

Jonathan Kay is a Wellington-based artist. This work was commissioned by Britomart as part of the exhibition The Slipping Away: Art and the Ocean Deep at Gus Fisher Gallery.

Text

Scientific poetry of form

 

Jessica Chubb

 

Events

Negative Mass

 

 

From 10-13 July 2019 at Takutai Square, artist Jonathan Kay created Negative Mass using a 19th century cyanotype printing technique, capturing the melting process of ice while raising awareness of the rapid decline of glaciers. An artist talk was held on 12 July 2019.

 

Gus Fisher Gallery
74 Shortland Street
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland Central 1010

Tuesday – Friday:
10am – 5pm
Saturdays:
10am – 4pm