CASS

‘Combining painting with a range of secondary outputs, André Hemer’s many-dimensioned installation for the Rolling Maul exhibition series plays with ideas of distance, deletion and dislocation. Hemer makes particular reference to Cass by Rita Angus, a well-known work from Christchurch Art Gallery’s collection, which was voted New Zealand’s Greatest Painting in a 2006 poll. Images of Cass abound throughout the real and virtual worlds, ranging from high-quality, ‘legitimate’ reproductions to cropped, blurred and otherwise corrupted versions. Sampling freely from conventional and new media sources, and adding his own interpretations to the mix, Hemer emphasises the sense of separation these endlessly multiplied facsimiles create, relating it to the physical inaccessibility of Cass itself, currently stored within the earthquake-closed Christchurch Art Gallery building.’

The Rolling Maul series is a Christchurch Art Gallery Outer Spaces project, supported by Creative New Zealand.