Dear Victoria

A collaborative project between two Christchurch artists, Dear Victoria will be the first presentation of the artists' shared practice and research conducted over the past year. Discussion and early research led promptly to joint and shared making sessions from which grew the artwork in this exhibition.

Through discussions with the artists, art writer Sally McIntyre makes a number of observations about their collaborative working process, ' The questions that arise in their collaboration are those of relationship, of the value of mentoring, of how working methods can combine, how a system of layers can be made transparent, how different generations of artists can find productive gist in the challenge of inclusion...'

Victorias Bell and Edwards reinforce this by saying, 'Ideas and process became cyclic with motifs reappearing in various mediums. Recurring forms drawn from the collaborative process have been identified and cross-referenced within the work, while individual mediums particular to each artists mode of making, cross over, are reinvented or borrowed.'

A deer's head trophy is re-contextualised. Its relationship to other aspects of the show is pivotal as the artists return dignity and presence to this 'male bastion of power and conquest'. Key structural elements engage with each other, with relationships between scale, form and three dimensions occur.

These collaborative workshop art making sessions have encouraged the artists to dig deep into their collective knowledge of art, history and culture in order to produce a contemporary installation which offers a suggestion of 'the past' alongside a 'girls own sensibility'.

Reviews, Essays & Articles
Seeing is believing
Arts Review, The Press, April 21, 2004, p. C2
Duncan, Margaret. 
About Dear Victoria & Sampler Series: Karin van Roosmalen

Dear Victoria
Presto May 2004
McIntyre, Sally. 

Dear Victoria
Whats Going On, National Radio, April 2004
Bazley, Tarek. 

Every girl in the room is called Emma
Art Review, Listener, May 1, 2004
Blundell, Sally. 

Dear Victoria
The Physics Room Annual, 2004
McIntyre, Sally Ann.