Passages 

Simon L Wong and Josie Connor

Twentysix
26 Constable Street, Newtown, Wellington

22 December – 3 January 2023

The meaning of passage is a way of exit or entrance, a road, path, channel or course by which something passes. A journey, especially over the sea, the motion of one thing relating to another and the act of passing from one state to another.

Passages is a collaborative window installation between Josie Connor’s painting practice and Simon L Wong’s medium format film photography. Both artists undertake a months-long kōrero/conversational journey to explore, respond and create connections between two entirely different art practices, and uncover what drives them in their chosen vehicles, painting and photography. 

Josie presents for the first time in exhibition her Tetra Pak Feedback works. An ongoing series of monochromatic metallic colour studies depicting circle-form arrangements. Small process orientated paintings that transform a waste resource (Tetra Pak cartons) through the tactile task of making. Another window displays an accompanying painting A Measure of Distance which employs departure point collage - a technique she always returns too. Printed colour copies are made of images from Simon's photo shoot, creating another narrative through painting while maintaining the link to Simon's photographic themes.

Simon exclusively showcases his experimental use of black and white medium format film photography in formal and unconventional ways. One window work includes a 60 Litre glass tank with a text based adhesive photograph, filled with water and lit with a LED light. Personally it represents a future with someone that is no longer there, and the clarity of water symbolic of tears. Simon is interested in drawing on themes through lived experience and cathartic moments through the amalgamation of painful romance and human relationships, all captured through the lens of his timeless minimalist aesthetic.

Both artists have built this project together through intentional, synergistic and sustainable art practice, inevitably finding new direction and reverence for the creative process amidst personal and universal passages.

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