Sarah Hillary
Travels in a Matchbox
18/07/21 — 15/08/21
A sense of appreciation of the work of other artists is characteristic of Sarah Hillary’s paintings. As Principal Conservator at Auckland Art Gallery, Hillary can spend days surveying the surfaces of paintings under a microscope. Her own art is associated with her profession at the forensic frontier of art history, but she reserves special affection for another world compressed by memory — that of friends, holidays and painting for pleasure.
In 2018 Hillary turned her attention to the ‘perfect imperfection’ of holiday homes, creating small dioramas of the “quiet beauty” of rooms from houses at Anawata, Te Uenga and Awana Beach. In this exhibition, Travels in a Matchbox, she has made miniatures of these dioramas and other earlier works.
What was a shoe, albeit a baby shoe size diorama, now fits inside a matchbox; what were postcard scale paintings of Frances Hodgkins paintings are now rendered no larger than a fingernail. As Hillary gets older she is not turning up the font size but making smaller and smaller things. She associates small scale with wonder — the pleasures of peering through a microscope at work — and collections of small things that hold precious memories at home. “Little gifts and things that remind us of people, are like family albums, full of clippings, invitations, photos, smears of glue and discoloured cellotape — they tell such a story of a life, of a time.”
Travels in a Matchbox, 18 July – 14 August 2021
Floating, 2011 as installed in Travels in a Matchbox
Floating (detail), 2011
99 handpainted Pipi and Tuatua shells
The Complete V&As, 2021, as installed in Travels in a Matchbox
68 handpainted shells
Pink, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Te Uenga, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Bay Parlour, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Night in the Cottage, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Teatime, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Anawata Dreaming, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
The Whare, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Tuitui, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
The Red House, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Dolphin Afternoons, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Phyl’s View, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Riroriro, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Anna’s View, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
Lockdown Flowers, 2021
Matchbox, paper and mixed media, 22 x 37 x 57mm
The Complete Voyage Around My House, 2021
L- R: Father’s Desk, Home; Twizel, Paris, London, Palermo, Buenos Aires; The Complete works of Phyl Rose
The Complete Works of Frances Hodgkins (detail), 2021
The Complete Works of Frances Hodgkins, 2021
Watercolour on paper, framed dimensions 380 x 365mm
Eggs & Ferns, c.1931 from Bright Parrot, 2005
October c.1932 from Bright Parrot, 2005
Still Life c.1930 from Bright Parrot, 2005
The Complete Double Happy, 2021
Watercolour on paper and mixed media, framed dimensions 470 x 405mm
Double Happy from Double Happy, 2013
“This was one of the treasures of my childhood, a little red seed container that contained a collection of the tiniest but recognisable animals from India. There was something genie in a bottle-like about it. Great care was required as they could be literally blown away – and several were. One ended up in the seagrass matting of a flat when I was a bit older, never to be seen again.
We thought they were ivory, but fortunately they are carved from bone. Such a tiny beauty required careful protection and this ceramic was the perfect size. No wonder I was so in awe of the miniature from any early age.”
– Sarah Hillary