All We Have Is Now

The first in the VOLUME site-specific series, All We Have Is Now comments on the art gallery environment as an artificial space. Kim Paton’s five metre long industrial stage spans the width of the gallery, tracing the exact perimeters of the space. The stage, replete with specialist lighting, suggests the gallery experience could be a performative act for the viewer as the work is by nature participatory - by walking into the space the viewer is caught up in a tension between being on stage or being an onlooker. The immersive potential of the work is thwarted by its minimalist rendering, the silence and lack of fanfare both encourages the functional potential of the work through viewer participation, and objectifies the structure of the stage as an aesthetic object.

Kim Paton is a Wellington based artist. Her first solo show was at Enjoy gallery, Wellington, in 2004, and she has shown in a number of group shows over the last year including Milky Way Bar, Hirschfeld Gallery at the City Gallery, Wellington; The Bed You Lie In, Artspace, Auckland; and Clubmeet, Blue Oyster Gallery, Dunedin. She is currently a member of the Board of Trustees for Enjoy gallery in Wellington.

Reviews, Essays & Articles
BYO Music/All We Have Is Now
Arts, Canta, Issue 11, May 25 2005
Regis and Kathy Lee

Visual arts
Art Beat, The Press, 14 May 2005

Foreign Strangers Pools; Geoff Newmann
Arts, Canta, Issue 14, July 13 2005

Kim Paton
All We Have Is Now
Volume issue one
Griffin, Kate.