Katherine Throne - Labour of Love: Preview Catalogue

Opening - Saturday 27th June 3.30-4.40pm

Sanderson are pleased to present the exhibition Labour of Love featuring a new suite of paintings by Katherine Throne.

The suite of canvasses making up Labour of Love burst with botanical energy. Based on the garden that wraps around her studio, these paintings are a celebration of the garden that Wanaka-based Katherine Throne has nurtured from the thin soil in Otago. 

Alongside their joyous optimism, these paintings have a definitive physicality. Like the plants she has lovingly coaxed outside, the work on display is the result of hard-won labour.  The act of creating is filled with trial, error, success and failure, and yet for Throne, the urge to create is constant. The intertwining of her labour both outside and in the studio are the subject of this exhibition.

Throne’s new work explores the theory of Biophilia. Developed in the 1980s, Edward Wilson’s theory proposes that the intrinsic drive in humans to connect with the natural world is the result of a cyclic connection of reward; which comes from an eternity existing in partnership with nature. We can all attest that time spent outside clears the head and frames the world more positively. For Throne, the time she labours with spade and secateurs delivers reward in multitudes – her walk to work is through her glorious picking garden, and the habit of picking and filling the house with blooms extends the joy further again.

Effort in the garden spills into the paintings themselves, and Throne’s compulsion to push the possibilities of her medium are obvious. There’s a fullness in the artworks, achieved with gestural marks and lustrous paint. When studying the texture alone on one of Throne’s canvases; the variety is vast, with flat areas contrasting with thick impasto. The surface texture and tension of the painting is an extension of the canvas, entering the viewer’s space in high relief.

What’s also evident is the journey Throne’s brushes have taken. You can track them across the canvas, the artist never covering up brush marks, perhaps just like freshly tilled earth. Plants and paints mimic each other in their journey of growth – one tossed by wind and sun, the other by palette knife and brush.

Throne’s careful tending and observing of the garden results in deep connection, and she speaks of her plants as having personalities. Magenta zinnias are loud and gregarious, while shy violas are happy to hide in the shade. These personalities shine through in Throne’s compositions, either as presented in a still-life arrangement – tablescapes - or a close-up of the garden itself. This all-welcome policy in the garden culminates in an untamed beauty, a nuance that spills over into her compositions alongside her love of intense colour and the physical qualities of paint itself.

Throne’s titles reflect the humanising of her subject matter; ‘A Vase a Day’ speaks to Throne’s penchant for always having vases of flowers in her home and ‘Between Friends’ imagines two plants, confidantes in conversation. The titles come to Throne during the process of painting and in turn helped direct the painting’s form and final composition. 

For Throne, her garden and therefore her painting, is all about the light. Ever-changing throughout the day, light is clocked and considered as it changes. The shape, texture and colour of a plant or bloom, as seen in the playful contrasts of shadow and limey greens in Picking Garden at Dusk. In the studio, light is translated through her heavy and generous use of oil paint. Finished works like Labour Pay are tactile, with a sculptured quality.

Aotearoa New Zealand has a long history of artists working with flora – both illustrative and artistic – dating back to pioneering women such as Fanny Osborne and Martha King. Each bring their own take and interpretation; Ivy Fife’s series of sunflowers from the 1960s are bold and strong, Gretchen Albrecht’s contemporary formal abstract paintings often directly reference specific flowers. With such competition it is hard to make one’s mark, but Throne does. Her works are painterly and alive; like having a slice of summer all year round.

As winter takes hold, Throne acknowledges a new cyclic season. She notes that in winter plants are busy in their restorative phase. Throne too is contemplative, nurturing imagery from the warmer months, putting paint to canvas, snug in her garden studio. As always, her two labours of love: painting and gardening work in tandem, coming together in beautiful and bountiful abundance.

- Dr Penelope Jackson MNZM