Workshop students turn art exhibitors
From left, artists Alison Forder, Trevor Marshall, Cushla Zeewoldt, Joss Ward and Debbie Walton-Derry say they love participating in David’s workshops. Photo: Alexandra Konitz.
A local exhibition is helping artists find their style and confidence while giving them a space to display work they can be proud of.
The Refinery ArtSpace is currently hosting the exhibition ‘Transition’, which is a display of the artwork created by the students of professional artist David Ryan’s workshops.
A total of 19 artists are exhibiting their pieces, showing how their work has progressed over time, the third time David and his students have organised an exhibition of this kind.
“The idea is to show their transition to a new thing, to be able to work on their own by themselves and to become artists,” explains David.
Both the students and David are more than happy with how the exhibition is going so far.
“The opening was very big, we catered for a hundred people and we got at least 300 or more, I think I stopped counting after that. It was packed.”
The main goal of the exhibition is to show the individuality of each artist.
“They are all very, very different, no one paints like me, no one paints like each other, everyone is completely different and that’s something I like to promote, for them to try and find their own voice. So the show is to showcase that everybody is an individual. No two artists are alike.”
To David, it is clear how much the students have improved over the course of workshops and how much more self-confidence they have built up.
“That’s kind of what it’s all about... just for them to believe in themselves.”
David has been offering his workshops for 12 years, and some of the participants have been attending them for the same period.
The workshops have become so popular that interested individuals have to be wait-listed, and some participants even come from as far as Blenheim for the classes.
“I think the best thing is to see people who haven’t had much confidence in their work to take the work to be either framed or mounted and then to see it in the exhibition looking really professional and still not believing that they are artists, but you can see it makes a difference and it definitely does help with their self-perception and their confidence,” concludes Jo Kinross, David’s business partner.
The exhibition is on display until Saturday, 9 March, at the Refinery ArtSpace on Hardy St.
By Alexandra Konitz