French artist takes up residency

massey-university

Sat Feb 20 2016 13:00:00 GMT+1300 (New Zealand Daylight Time)

French artist takes up residency

Saturday, 20 February 2016, 2:02 pm
Press Release: Massey University

French artist takes up residency

French artist Etienne de France has arrived in Wellington to take up his Te Whare Hēra International Artist Residency ahead of an exhibition of his work in the city early in March.

For the next three months, Mr de France will be living at Te Whare Hēra’s live-work studio, gallery and apartment suite located at the prow end of Wellington waterfront’s Clyde Quay Development as part of the residency programme run by Massey’s School of Art and the Wellington City Council. Mr de France’s residency is also a special initiative supported by The French Embassy.

Mr de France, 31, is a visual artist currently living in Paris. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Archeology in 2005 and then completed a BA in Visual Arts at the Iceland Art Academy of Reykjavik three years later.

He pursues a multidisciplinary art practice. Drawing on the fields of architecture and sciences, he creates series of works exploring the differences between concepts of nature and landscape. His practice uses a variety of media such as writing, video, photography, drawing, and sculpture. During his time in Wellington he plans to work on his on-going project The Green Vessel, a multi-layered endeavour consisting of film, installation and drawing.

Set in location that blurs settings between France, Columbia and New Zealand his project stages the story of a recent discovery made by scientists in the remote forests of a cold country, unveiling a great water contamination scandal. It interweaves poetic fiction with precise events, drawing from such stores as the illegal spreading of pesticides around a French military base that led to contamination of nearby rivers and waterways and the effect of dairy farming on New Zealand’s natural environment. The Green Vessel project started in France and continued during a residency in Bogota, Columbia. His Wellington residency will be spent developing the project further while also making a series of videos related to the capital and other parts of New Zealand.

Mr de France presents a public lecture about his work on Tuesday March 8 in The Pit, Block 12 Te Ara Hihiko, of Massey’s Wellington campus.

Artist’s website: http://www.etiennedefrance.com/

ENDS

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