the soft parade

31 October 2009 - 14 February 2010

A hard look at softness in art - A Waikato Museum Collections Exhibition
Curator: Leafa Wilson

Photo Credit: 1920s female display bust

Soft images are beautiful. Our perception of softness is linked to our experiences of what ‘soft’ might imply.
Taking a hard look beyond what might appear sensual and soft, we can often find turbulence just beneath the surface that reveals another layer to a complicated story.
Whether by gesture, colour, line, tone or title, artists have been getting us to look at art by luring us with the beauty of the surface. This exhibition asks us to assume nothing about the surface and invites to you in to interpret softness with less fuzzy lenses than our senses.

Included Artists:

Henry E. Gaze b.1874 d.1953, Fiona Pardington, Christine Webster, Lurlene Christiansen, Jan Nigro, Petrus van der Velden b.1837 d.1913, Thomas Miles Richardson b.1813 d.1890, Marilynn Webb, Gretchen Albrecht, Lisa Benson, John Drawbridge b.1930 d.2005, Campbell Smith, Lois White b.1903 d.1984, Seraphine Pick.