The artist, Helen Kerridge, resides and works in Hawke’s Bay. Her painting “Jason ponders the length of a piece of string?” represents her personal form of paint communication: surrealism largely inspired by the works of the Spanish painter Goya who frequently portrayed mankind as not being enlightened. He saw how crowd-mentality worked in dark ways; that violence, prejudice and stupidity existed in times that were meant to be enlightened. Kerridge sees how these elements remain constant two hundred years on from Goya.
In her painting a young boy stands pondering the length of a piece of string, he wears a typical Kiwiana tee shirt placing these same dark elements firmly in Aotearoa. Goya’s owls representing Minerva have been genetically modified with sheep, an animal associated with the following flock and stupidity. Now as the reason of man sleeps he is tormented by this twisted truth. The birdcage is a symbol of hope when containing birds, here it has had the door removed and the birds have flown. Numerous narratives within each painting are signatures of Kerridge’s work.
"Allen Maddox was born in Liverpool and migrated to NZ in 1963. He briefly went to the School of Fine Arts at Canterbury University before dropping out to pursue a career in advertising.  He was well known for being part of the abstract expressionist movement.  He was also well known to have suffered from schizophrenia which was "mostly" controlled by medication but at times included recreation drugs and alcohol. 
Maddox, who lived mainly in Napier, died in 2000 aged 51. "
Picture
The Chief Mourner and the Last Drops A prize winner of the James Wallace Art Awards

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The artist, Matt Couper, grew up in Hastings and now lives and works in the USA. "Chief Mourner and the Last Drops" represents Matt's interest in international issues of water scarcity, restrictions and shortages. The Chief Mourner is situated in Lake Mead, near Las Vegas, where all that is left after drilling are the straws or pipes left after drawing water.
The work also relates to the contamination of the aquifer water supply in Havelock North and the exporting of Hawkes Bay water to China.