This work relates to the category 1 listed Sarjeant Gallery heritage building at Pukenamu Queen's Park in Whanganui, and is part of Matt Pine's High Water Works series.

Having graduated out of Hornsey College of Art in London in 1979 Matt Pine returned to his home town of Whanganui. In London he had witnessed sculpture undergoing radical modernist changes and the stripping away of emotional and spiritual content. The focus of Pine’s contemporaries in London was the use of modern materials and the interest in showing the process of making. This was so different from other Māori artists practicing in New Zealand.
I developed a good working relationship with Matt and included him in a several local exhibitions. I acquired a number of his works for the Collection that in particular relate to Māori structures such as meeting houses, fortifications and canoes.
In 1981 [sic 1983] I curated a pair of exhibitions that explored the relationship between Whanganui and the awa. One was an exhibition of photographs made by a Whanganui born photographer Anne Noble. The other was a series of aluminium works of the structures of Whanganui that have close proximity to the river, and the impact of a major flood on them. These were scattered around the floor of the Sarjeant’s front gallery and the Sarjeant itself stood complete above them on a plinth.
Gallery is created in a manner that vaguely takes the form of the Sarjeant but is as though it has inwardly exploded due to the pressure of the flooding. It’s as if the waters have poured in through the collapsed dome and are pushing out through the niches. This is one of the first of many responses to the Sarjeant itself as an object and presents Matt in a more literal and accessible way. Gallery is one of many works of Matt’s that I consider significant but it has clearly strong personal relationships with the place where I have spent close to 30 years.
- Bill Milbank, ArtZone 29 August 2019 https://www.artzone.co.nz/post/a-few-of-my-favourite-things