Suffrage celebration captured in print

 

Mangawhai artists Nicola Everett, Lynn Middleton and Tatjana Panyoczki are joining other artists in marking the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand.  

Nicola and Lynn are joining 125 New Zealand printmakers in a project ‘125 CELEBRATE 125’. 

Printmakers throughout NZ have contributed A4-paper prints which make up two carefully collated boxed sets. The prints will be displayed and archived as part of New Zealand’s 125 Suffrage Celebrations.  

“My work is about the resourcefulness of women, particularly my grandmother, Rosanna Sarah Partridge, who was constantly stitching,” Nicola explains. “During The Depression she reworked clothes over and over,”

Nicola says that being resourceful is becoming a more valued skill today especially considering the futures we may face.

In a work called ‘Forget me Knot’, Lynn has used women’s hair and cotton threads to represent the strength that comes from working together, shared energies and collective strength. The forget me knot is set within embossed grid lines to illustrate the opposition faced by suffragettes and remembering the imprisonment of UK suffragettes.

Organised by the Franklin Print Group, imagery in the prints celebrates the lives, roles, presence and influence of women, inspired by history, our national story, and each artist’s personal experiences or thinking. The printed imagery is primarily generated by a hand-made print process. 
In 'Stories of Hankies and Heroines', Tatjana Panyoczki has joined other artists in an exhibition ‘Empowering Women - 125 Years of Women's Suffrage in Aotearoa’ at Masterworks Gallery Auckland from 26 August - 19 September.

Nicola, Tatjana and Lynn are members of Mangawhai Artists Inc. There is an opportunity to see more of Nicola and Lynn’s work when, and along with five other Mangawhai printmakers, they will be exhibiting in the Mangawhai Artists Gallery from Friday October 12 in an exhibition of printmaking.

A stitched work by Nicola Everett.