Aidan Taira Geraghty and Bri Leone-Rhea Lawrence

09 07 25

29 Aug — 19 Oct

photograph of the arists, black and white, outlooking Karitane, Ōtepoti

Artists Bri Leone-Rhea Lawrence and Aidan Taira Geraghty looking over Karitane.

install view, inside the gallery of the artists work

090725 (installview), 2025. Documentation by Owen Spargo.

artwork, photograph titled ko wai au?, large format photograph featuring blue sky and marae waharoa

Aidan Taira Geraghty, Ko wai au?, 2024. Digital Print. Commissioned by Te Tuhi. Documentation by Owen Spargo.

artwork, photograph titled anamata, large format photograph featuring looking through a brightly covered playground at a marae and the ocean on the horizon

Aidan Taira Geraghty, Anamata, 2024. Digital Print. Commissioned by Te Tuhi. Documentation by Owen Spargo.

artwork, photograph titled anamata, large format photograph featuring a old white wooden church, urupa and the ocean on the horizon

Aidan Taira Geraghty, Onamata, 2024. Digital Print. Commissioned by Te Tuhi. Documentation by Owen Spargo.

artwork, pair of photographs as a diptych featuring hills and a field, muted green and grey blue sky

Bri Leone-Rhea Lawrence, Whakapau, 2025. Diptych, digital print on Hahnemühle. Documentation by Owen Spargo.

artwork, photograph of headstones in an urupa, with muted green field behind

Bri Leone-Rhea Lawrence, Pau, 2025. Digital print on Hahnemühle. Documentation by Owen Spargo.

artwork, large format photograph, of a domestic backyard, with clothes line and lemon tree

Bri Leone-Rhea Lawrence, Nanny Lovey, 2025. Digital print on Hahnemühle. Documentation by Owen Spargo.

09 07 25 is an exhibition with artists Bri Leone-Rhea Lawrence and Aidan Taira Geraghty. An auspicious date on which the artists expressed a desire to get to know one another, prior to presenting their work. Their series of photographs stands in as documentation, of ground covered in their recent years, on truth, self-belief, and knowledge systems that are inseparable from their biography. The photographs identify particular strategies to unpack their genealogical connection to their family stories.

The āhua of the exhibition is a warm invitation to sit with their irreconcilable ideas about distance, accountability, inheritance, beauty and boredom.

Aidan Taira Geraghty (Ngāi Tahu–Ngāi Tūāhuriri, Kāti Huirapa ki Puketeraki) is an artist who lives in Ōtepoti, Te Waipounamu. He is currently completing an MFA at the Dunedin School of Art, Otago Polytechnic, and holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Contemporary Sculpture. His most recent exhibitions include Migratory Patterns (2025) group exhibition at CoCA Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki, Ōtautahi; Paemanu: Awa Toi at the Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art in Queensland (2024); Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua / Home is where the kai is 2024 at Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau; Ka Kore, Kua Kore (2023), a collaborative show with Moewai Marsh at Blue Oyster Art Project Space.

Bri Leone-Rhea Lawrence (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairoa) is an artist based in Ōtautahi. She holds a Bachelor of Art & Design specialising in Photography from Ara Institute of Canterbury, and was recognised with the Eke Panuku awards. Bri is a recent recipient of the Toi Ōtautahi Incubator Programme and resident photographer for Queer Horizons Ōtautahi. Her work was included in Whakawhanaungatanga (2023) at CoCA Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki, Ōtautahi.

The artists would like to thank their supporters. Bri would like to acknowledge Nanny Lovey, Aunty Charmaine, Aunty Flo and Uncle Pu, Ilam School of Fine Arts, Conor Clake, Aidan Moody, Jamie Price and Toi Ōtautahi. Aidan would like to thank Ella Cameron-Smith, Mere Taua, David Geraghty, Vicki Lenihan, Te Marino Lenihan, Waiariki Parata-Taiapa, Suzanne Ellison and Paemanu.

Free Downloads:

a response by Waiariki Parata-Taiapa (pdf) letter 090725 by James Tapsell-Kururangi (pdf)