New Taupō Museum exhibit explores the abundance of life within nature

The newest exhibit at Taupō Museum will take visitors on a journey of unguarded, transcendent moments throughout the natural world.

Award-winning artist Lea-Anne Sheather’s exhibit Handle With Care, comprising 2D and 3D textile and collaged art, explores her own experiences with nature.

Sheather’s work includes highly detailed fabrications which depict an imaginary construct called ‘Island of Woo’. These small-scale constructions are inspired by the abundance of life she witnesses every day when she explores the beach and bush reserves near her home.

She pays close attention to the details which she describes as being like mini landscapes. She says even the smallest of spaces “can teem with exuberant layers of life”. Island of Woo is a visual depiction of her imagining of lively, interactive connectivity on Earth.

Her larger work continues to explore our interconnectedness and interdependency with all life forms. They include freeform embroideries and collages and depict the lines, patterns, and wave-like layers that she saw in dreams and visions which reveal what interconnections might look like.

Some of the artwork is created on recycled woolen blankets and others are created on canvases with recycled paper.

Sheather has won and been a finalist in several art awards within Aotearoa New Zealand, including the Miles Art Award 2014 (Supreme winner), the Parkin Art Award 2022 (Highly Commended), the Molly Morpeth Canaday Art Award 2019 (Highly Commended winner), as well as a finalist in the Walker and Hall Waiheke Art Award, and Rotorua Museum Art Award.

She completed a Master of Fine Arts at the Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in 2014.

Handle With Care is being held in Taupō Museum’s Niven Room from 23 March to 12 May. Taupō Museum is open from 10am to 4.30pm daily and entry is free for Taupō District residents with proof of address.