A D R I E N N E M A R T Y N
I am an art photographer based in Wellington, New Zealand. My photography covers portrait, architecture, landscape and still-life themes.
Since 2017 I have photographed emptied heritage sites closed to the public due to seismic vulnerabilities or undergoing structural changes. Some of these spaces contained object collections that were removed at my instruction where I photographed these emptied spaces as visual objects in themselves. By removing collection objects the spaces became the subject for contemplation. For this work I used a high resolution Nikon D850 camera with Sigma Art lenses and available light. The images were presented as pigmented prints.
In 2021 I photographed the home of printmaker Marilynn Webb with her personal collection of objects and artworks not long before she passed away. The images were presented in my exhibition 'as she left' at Olga Gallery, Dunedin. The suite of nine prints were acquired for the Hocken Gallery collection. I have begun an ongoing project photographing the closed Turnbull House, Wellington as it undergoes seismic strengthening and restoration.
In 2022 I was Artist in Residence at Dunedin School of Art where I produced 'Snow Line' - a landscape series of images depicting the Rock & Pillar Range at Strath Taieri, Otago. The work was presented as an abstract composite comprising 19 A2 prints at Dunedin School of Art Gallery 2022.
During 2023 I returned to portrait photography where I was commissioned by Southland Museum & Art Gallery to photograph Southland's queer community for SMAG's permanent collection. All forty-one formal studio portraits were presented in the exhibition 'Seen/Scene' at He Waka Tuia during Southland Pride week 2023.
Some of my background: I was born in Wellington 1950 and brought up in Invercargill where at the age of eighteen I moved to Dunedin to learn photographic and darkroom skills from a commercial photographer. In 1970 I returned to Invercargill where I was a photographer's assistant for Campbell Studios. At that time I bought my first serious camera - a Speed Graphic 4x5 from The Southland Times. A year later I worked as a freelance darkroom technician for Christchurch fashion photographer Euan Sarginson who encouraged me to use his 35mm Pentax as the Speed Graphic was too cumbersome for me to use. With a new portfolio of images taken with my own Pentax I briefly worked as a camera assistant and darkroom technician for Cyril Taft's Illustrative Photography in Auckland. I then moved to Sydney in 1972 where I worked as a darkroom technician and studio photographer at the Sydney Morning Herald. From 1972 - 1974 I was involved with the Sydney Women’s Film Group, contributed photographs to the movie 'Home', feminist newspapers, magazines and books including feminist poet Kate Jennings seminal work ‘Mother I’m Rooted – an Anthology of Australian Women Poets’. In 1974 I photographed recipients of grants for the Australia Council. I also received a grant from the Experimental Film & Television Fund, Australian Film Institute, to produce 'The Object' which I shot in 1975.
I returned to Dunedin in 1975 later attending Otago Polytechnic School of Art in 1977, for a short time, where I was inspired by the paintings of Vermeer and modernist abstract art. After leaving art school I explored abstraction in landscape and architectural subjects in a series of photographs later exhibited at Bosshard Galleries Dunedin in 1978. On purchasing a medium format camera (Rolled SL66) I returned to Sydney to attend the Australian Centre for Photography workshops in Paddington where I explored portrait photography.
In 1980 I set up a portrait photography studio in Dunedin photographing friends, artists and commissions. I also used the interior of the Hotel Excelsior as a setting for portraits. In 1981 I produced ‘Surfaces’, a series of abstract photographs exploring the play of light on stucco textures shown at Dunedin Public Art Gallery and Peter Webb Galleries, Auckland 1982. Prints from these early portrait and surface studies were collected by Te Papa Museum of New Zealand Auckland Art Gallery Dunedin Public Art Gallery and The Dowse Museum. I moved to Auckland setting up a studio in 1985 where, in 1986, NAG/Te Papa commissioned me to photograph ‘Artist Portraits’ for its collection. A couple of years later the Dunedin Public Art Gallery mounted and toured a survey exhibition of my portrait work covering 1979 - 1987 period. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanied this touring exhibition.
During 1988 I continued creating portraits at the empty Hotel Excelsior focussing on the austere kauri staircase lit by its stairwell cupola. On a visit to Sydney in early 1989, I viewed an exhibition at Art Gallery of New South Wales of Bill Henson's large scale portrait/museum triptychs. I was inspired to revisit the Excelsior portrait images and, encouraged by artist friends, combine them with my images of the kauri staircase. This body of work was first presented as ‘Excelsior’ at Marshall Seifert Gallery, Dunedin and 'Absence:Presence' at Jonathan Jensen Gallery, Christchurch in 1989.
On a brief visit to the Louvre in 1990 I photographed galleries using my hand-held Rollei. Continuing this exploration of Art as Subject I photographed artist's studios at an artist workshop near Oamaru. In 1992 I attended one of these workshops where I explored painting and drawing later setting up a painting studio at the vacant Excelsior building.
I moved to Melbourne where I lived from 1995 returning in 1998 to New Zealand to live in Napier teaching analogue photographic practice at EIT. My personal photographic practice resumed, after a six year hiatus, photographing palisades, water and grasses at Otatara Pa Historic Reserve, Hawkes Bay with support of DOC and local iwi. ‘Otatara’ was shown at Hawkes Bay Museum 1999 and in that same year, using digital technology, I created 'River' presented as a large composite grid comprising sixty-five A3 prints of the Tutaekuri River.' River' was purchased by Hawke's Bay Museum. The following year I was the Artist in Residence at Waikato Museum where I investigated Lake Taupo's volcanic origins – a selection of images from this residency were shown and collected by Waikato Museum.
In 2005 I gained my MFA (First Class Hons.) from Elam School of Art, University of Auckland, where I created a series of digitally manipulated analogue images of the Louvre and Auckland Art Gallery investigating absence - looking at the theft of the Mona Lisa and how the space it occupied attracted wide attention compared to the painting itself. For my project I blacked out the canvases of classical and modernist artworks drawing attention to the power of the frame and Maleviche's 'Black Square'. This project ‘Looking for the Subject’ was exhibited at City Gallery Wellington in 2007. Five images from this project were presented in 'In Absentia' at Nadene Milne Gallery, Arrowtown April 2024.
In 2019 I ventured into different territory photographing cluttered and decayed hotel rooms at Bluff's Club Hotel. Eight large prints from this project were exhibited in collaboration with poet Cilla McQueen who stamped and displayed her poetry on large sheets of silk. Our exhibition, titled 'Gossamer', was presented at Miharo Gallery, Invercargill in 2020. August 2024 I continued this theme photographing the rubbish filled rooms at the former Dee Street Maternity Hospital, Invercargill. Currently I am photographing St Gerard's Monastery, Oriental Bay, Wellington.
In March 2025 I'll be Artist in Residence at The Church, Rawene, Hokianga.
Planning is currently underway to present a major survey exhibition and publication on my photographic art practice covering fifty years, at the Hocken Library Gallery in 2026-2027.
RESIDENCIES & GRANTS
Artist in Residence, Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic, 2022.
Artist in Residence, Waikato Museum of Art & History, 2000
Artist in Residence, Visual Art & Design Department, EIT, 1998-99
Inaugural Artist in Residence, Samuel Marsden Collegiate, 1999
Creative Communities grant ‘Golder Cottage’ exhibition Whirinaki Whare Taonga, 2022
QEII Arts Council grant ‘Artist Portraits’ exhibition Brooker Gallery, 1988
Buddle Findlay grant ‘Portrait of Law’ exhibition City Gallery Wellington, 1987
American Express grant ‘Artist Portraits’ project, National Art Gallery, 1986
Experimental Film & Television Fund grant, Australian Film Institute, 1975
COLLECTIONS
Aigantighe Art Gallery
Auckland Art Gallery
Christchurch Art Gallery
Dunedin Public Art Gallery
Eastern Southland Gallery
Hawke’s Bay Museum
Hocken Library University of Otago
Invercargill Public Art Gallery
Te Papa Museum of New Zealand
The Dowse
Sarjeant Gallery
Southland Museum & Art Gallery
University of Canterbury
Waikato Museum
Radio interview with Darren Ludlow for Radio Southland August 2022