Whakatāne Art and Heritage Galleries Blog

2019 Law Creative Group People’s Choice Award winner Painting

Ōpōtiki Artist wins People’s Choice Award

A new award plaque has been added to the 2019 Molly Morpeth Canaday Award – Painting and Drawing (MMCA) exhibition at Te Kōputu a te whanga a Toi. Organisers are excited to announce that the recipient of the Law Creative People’s Choice Merit Award ($500) is the finely-rendered oil painting, Fencing Assistant, by Mark Anstis.

Beyond the Bricks and Mortar

The historical moments that have defined Whakatane Museum over the past 80 years are fairly simple. In the 1930s a group of community leaders with a keen interest in heritage and local identity formed an organisation to identify Māori settlement sites, collect books and objects, and encourage writing about history. They formed the Bay of Plenty Maori and Historical Research Society, and the dream of Whakatane Museum begins with their pre-War efforts.

Whakatāne Museum is developing a Volcanic Artist Residency to connect creative people with New Zealand's only active offshore volcano. In April, Christchurch artists Edwards + Johann made the journey and found endless inspiration for new work.

Groundwork laid for volcanic artist residencies

Whakatāne Museum is currently testing out a theory that creative people and volcanoes go together.

Allow Yourself to Be Drawn In

Looking at and Listening to the 2018 Molly Morpeth Canaday Exhibition
Whakatane Museum and Arts Director Eric Holowacz on Art, Answers, and Birdsongs

What is the use of art? Why do we make it, share it, talk about it? Why give prizes like Whakatane's Molly Morpeth Canaday Award for it?

We are a curious lot, human beings. And the questions we ask—and try hard to answer—can often define us. I like to think that responding to the unknown is an attempt to make us whole, to flex our creative muscles, to verify that we are here.

The Commerce Hotel, c.1908, Whakatāne Museum Collection 2010.95.9

Time Gentlemen Please

This article originally appeared in Plenty Magazine.

The phrase “The End of an Era” is often overused, but it is surely applicable to the recent closure of the Commercial Hotel in Whakatane. More accurately called the New Commercial Hotel, the well known - and much loved - building was actually the second watering hole to grace the current location, and the appearance of the original structure was not exactly the considered process we equate with hotel construction today.