Stephen Ellis's HVAC study (Brent W) is part of the new exhibition Drawing for A Group Show at Whangārei Art Museum. Part of the HVAC suite, a new series by the artist, HVAC study (Brent W) reflects on the growing visibility and necessity of ventilation and air-conditioning systems, in an increasingly unstable climate.
Rendered in soot and charcoal, the drawing transforms familiar industrial ducting into something more ambiguous. What looks like a complex cloud formation in the sky reflects networks that might sustain life through circulating air, but which also evoke conduits for warnings, alarms, and the unseen infrastructures that shape our daily existence.
The work pays quiet homage to New Zealand painter Brent Wong, whose enigmatic 1970s landscapes populated by mysterious architectural forms profoundly influenced Ellis's visual language. Viewed today, both Wong's and Ellis's uncanny structures seem strikingly prophetic, anticipating contemporary anxieties around environmental degradation, technological dependence, and the hidden systems that will increasingly govern our lives.
Reinforcing these ideas are Ellis's choice of materials - soot and charcoal. Both residues of combustion, speaking directly to a warming world driven by fossil fuels, while charcoal also carries the irony of being used in filtration systems to remove soot and impurities from the air. Through this layered interplay of imagery, material and historical reference, HVAC study (Brent W) becomes a quiet meditation on climate change and the fragile relationship between human ingenuity and the environmental consequences it seeks to manage.
Featured: Stephen Ellis, HVAC study (Brent W), 2026
Lamp black (soot), charcoal and coloured pencil on paper
240 x 320 mm
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