Rosalie Jurczenko’s new solo exhibition at Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History is a show about resilience, told through New Zealand nature and her own cultural experiences.
Titled Shadowing Lands, the exhibition follows on from her initial reaction on hearing that Ukraine was under fire in 2022. Her parents came to New Zealand in 1944 as Polish refugee children and as the impact of war was experienced firsthand, it is something they thought was in the past.
Shown through works such as Ukrainian Folk Costume, referencing women’s work, textiles, cultural survival, defiance and its endurance throughout history, Jurczenko explores resilience in culture when it’s under threat.
“These are just ordinary people living their everyday lives, they had no voice; so I gave them one,”
she explains.
Energy flows through her work as if it’s part of a bigger whole, her palette is sourced from the natural world such as clouds, stones, sand and plant matter.
“Native trees tell a similar story surviving harsh conditions, their tiny flowers are often overlooked. They are depicted by their movement in the wind and growth patterns,” she says.
Her small watercolours are based on specimens she saw at Te Papa from the botanist Joseph Banks.
“His specimens were dehydrated and brown, to him they were these special plants. It’s funny to think that we see these amazing native plants as ordinary.”
These 16 small, beautiful watercolours are framed in wood against a dark green wall. “I wanted to feel like you had just stepped into the bush,” she says.
Rosalie Jurczenko’s exhibition Shadowing Lands
is showing in the Forsyth Barr Windows Gallery until 2 November.
