Fiona Pardington (Ngai Tahu, Kati Mamoe, Ngati Kahungunu and Scottish Clan Cameron of Erracht), is one of New Zealand's best-known artists with an extensive national and international exhibition history.
Pardington, whose practice is based in photography, is a master of analogue darkroom techniques, and a specialist in hand-printing. Her work has covered investigations into the history of photography and representations of the body; incorporating studies of subject-photographer relations, medicine, memory, collecting practices and still life.
Pardington's exhibition at Papakura Art Gallery samples several of her bodies of work, which can be characterised as personal private collections that are simultaneously museological and supernatural, infused with memory and mourning.
IMAGE: Fiona Pardington; Still Life with Seaweed and Lemons; pigment inks on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308gsm; 800 x 1080 mm, 2011 (courtesy the artist and Two Rooms)