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Blow Your Own Trumpet
November 1, 2023 - November 11, 2023
Blow Your Own Trumpet – an exhibition of mobiles and kinetic sculpture by Tina Matthews
Wellington-born Tina Matthews has been an artist and maker for over four decades. Honing her skills as a puppet maker, book author and illustrator and embroiderer, her aesthetic is both heartfelt and original. Beating beneath the soul of her work is the imagination of an inventor. For thirty years her commercially successful black and white mobile for newborns has delighted babies the world over and fostered their cognitive development. Matthews worked for many years for Australia’s national puppet company the Marionette Theatre of Australia, was also employed on Jim Henson’s movie Labyrinth and ABC TV puppet show ‘The Ferals’ all the while teaching puppetry at NIDA for 30 years. She has written and illustrated four picture books and one of these, ‘Waiting for Later’, was featured in the State Library of NSW’s 2023 exhibition ‘Imagine- the wonder of picture books’.
In this show Tina Matthews presents kinetic sculptures constructed from found and reworked materials that include steel and copper, wood, silk threads, glassine and shellac. These joyful sculptures perform in any breeze that passes and have a parallel life in the shadows they throw on all surrounding surfaces.
“I have been a puppet maker and puppeteer for many years, so movement is integral to my three-dimensional work. Having these mobiles and their shadow-selves around me is to be amongst living things; they are unpredictable and constantly amusing in their perpetual performance, dancing with the air and trying to get my attention. Some shapes and colours appeared to me in dreams, others arose from memories of childhood fabrics. Some simply began with a name.”
Do not miss the opportunity to step into the magical world of this diverse and little known artist.
Exhibition dates and times:
Wednesday 1st to Saturday 11th November, 2023, Opening Wednesday 1st 6-8pm
Wednesday-Sunday 11- 6pm and by appointment Monday 6th or Tuesday 7th
m. 0490206123
ttinamatthews.com
@ttinamatt @blackandwhitebabymobile