Sarah Jane Parton

Guidance

18 Apr — 12 May 2007

Sarah Jane Parton’s new installation Guidance is a critique of the future as it has been imagined in the past.

Through an exhaustive investigation of all attempts at social engineering ever, the artist has conceived the ultimate hybridised ideology for how people should be. Ultimately flawed, yet ultimately perfect, the true way of the future is offered as Guidance and is presented in a video work that is accompanied by a series of impermanent drawings and changing photographic images.

Wellington-based artist Parton often appears in her work in various guises, performing to appropriated remixed pop tunes. In the video work that appears in Guidance the artist performs a choreographed gymnastics-type routine to a reworked Guns ‘n’ Roses track. Photographs of non-descript interiors and family portraits are displayed alongside diagrammatic drawings that attempt to expose and thus explain the inner workings of humankind.

Sarah Jane Parton has a Bachelor of Fine Arts (with Honours), majoring in Time Based Art from the School of Fine Arts, Massey University, Wellington. Recent exhibitions include Painted Faces (curated by Sarah Farrar), Michael Hirschfeld Gallery, Wellington; Macrofun, with Eugene Hansen, Jenny Gillam and Paul Faris, Show Gallery, Wellington; Canned Heat (curated by Bekah Carran), Blue Oyster Galley, Dunedin; Frugal Pleasures - a Survey of New Zealand Video Art (curated by Emma Bugden), City Gallery, Wellington and The Film Archive, Wellington; Prospect 2004: New Art, New Zealand (curated by Emma Bugden), City Gallery, Wellington.

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