For Wellington-based photographer Adrienne Martyn the opportunity to photograph the emptying interiors of the Gallery over 2018 — 2019 was one that built on a continued interest in documenting buildings that have had a public life and are currently in hibernation and closed due to being earthquake prone. Prior to the Sarjeant it was Anderson House in Invercargill, a former private home that had been gifted to the city for use as an art gallery, the Robert McDougall Art Gallery in Christchurch, and more recently the Southland Museum and Art Gallery.
Martyn’s approach to the Sarjeant was two-fold, her extraordinarily sharp images depict the details of surfaces in the gallery with a forensic eye but within the huge building she has approached the project with an eye that is akin to that of a formal abstract painter. The images combine close-ups of found scenarios — layers of line, planes of colour, textures, but they also record the removal of wall linings to reveal battens and the sketchy marks left behind.
In addition to the photographs featured Martyn has also collaborated with designer Duncan Munro to create a moving image work that scrolls across and up, like a view master the viewer has no control of. Displayed in a small space, these moving images that depict the light airy spaces of the empty Gallery create a disconcerting feeling of claustrophobia. Like Regan Gentry’s staircase work, Martyn’s moving images suggest that the gallery has for the last hundred years been in a constant state of motion and change and will be going forward. The now empty walls have played host to hundreds of art works over the last century and will no doubt do the same for the next hundred years.
- Greg Donson, Curator & Public Programmes Officer, Sarjeant Gallery, label text for exhibition 'Turn of a Century', 7 Sep 2019 - 9 Feb 2020