Suter Art Gallery, Nelson

One of the first things we wanted to do whilst in Nelson was visit The Suter Art Gallery, the public contemporary art gallery for the Nelson Tasman region. We were so impressed it gets a ‘footprint’ of its own.

Located beside the Queens Gardens on the edge of downtown Nelson, The Suter Art Gallery is one of the oldest galleries in New Zealand. Whilst we were there, there were three exhibitions - all free - Wayne Youle, Michael Dell, and Diane Prince, excerpts of which we’ve shared below to give insight into the photos.

WAYNE YOULE - ‘BACK IN FIVE’

We both found this local artist very thought provoking and the exhibition really well curated with great explanations.

Growing up in the 1970s and 80s, Wayne Youle saw a kindred spirit in The Karate Kid - the scrappy outsider who, under the calm guidance of Mr Miyagi, learns to channel cheek into discipline, and raw energy into mastery.

His ‘Back in Five’ exhibition surveys twenty years of Youle's sculptural practice. With playfulness and wit, Youle tackles big ideas - masculinity, fatherhood, colonial legacy and bicultural identity - while drawing on the humour and irreverence of his younger self. What looks like a joke at first glance often contains a sting - a challenge to the tidy black-and-white narratives of history and identity. In his work, Youle is both Karate Kid and Mr Miyagi - still throwing punches, but now from both corners of the ring.

Of Similar Or Equal Weight, 2017
(Punch bag)
At first glance, it's a punching bag painted with a face that echoes a racist golliwog caricature. Suspended beside it is a smiling counterweight, painted in a pale tone that subtly references whiteness. Together, they form a tense visual duet, heavy with commentary on race, power and cultural pressure. The punching bag isn't just gym equipment - it's a symbol of resilience and repeated impact, suggesting the toll of being seen, stereotyped and scrutinised. Is it a metaphor for navigating the art world? A reflection on bicultural identity in a settler-colonial context? Maybe. But it also asks sharper questions: Who carries the weight?
Who lands the blows? And who, in the end, gets to keep smiling?

Genius, 2012
(Walking sticks)
This chain of interlocking walking sticks, was inspired by Wayne Youle's eldest son, Kupa, who was diagnosed on the autism spectrum at a young age. The piece is a meditation on how society defines ability and worth. Who gets labelled a genius? Who gets dismissed?
The continuous chain also acts as a sculptural lineage of care, connection and inherited strength. It is a touching reminder of witnessing someone learning to walk and taking their final steps. It's a father's reflection on the values we pass down, the labels we push back on, and the complex beauty of minds that don't follow the expected patterns.

Piece of String, 2006
(Long orange knit)
For this work, Wayne Youle asked his mother Jacqui to knit for him for a whole year. She began on his great-grandmother's birthday, weaving a literal and symbolic thread through their shared maternal hakapapa. There were no instructions, no end goal - just an open invitation and a steady supply of bright orange yarn. The result - 28 metres of knitted time - is less about the object than the relationship it maps. Regular phone calls became part of the process, with his mum offering updates and small apologies. A mother doing her best; a son gently reassuring her that she was already enough. What emerges is a soft archive of time and love, measured in stitches, persistence and quiet devotion.

Speaks Softly, 2012
(Suspended cannonball)
This work speaks to the quiet strength of those asked to carry more than their share - especially women. Here, a cannonball from the Taranaki land wars sits uneasily within the delicate curves of fishnet stockings, creating a charged tension between violence and allure. The “sexy” silhouette becomes a sharp commentary on the weight women are asked to bear - not just historically and physically, but emotionally and aesthetically. Carry the load, but make it look effortless. For Mãori wahine, that burden is even heavier, shaped by generations of cultural, political and personal expectation. The work distils these contradictions into a potent symbol - a fierce and graceful embodiment of the old saying "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

Taniwha DNA, 2024-2025
(Snooker balls)
This trio of DNA helixes were made in tribute to Wayne Youle's three sons. Perched on a mirrored plinth that reflects them like water, the structures echo the glinting scales of taniwha - mythological Mãori water creatures known for being both fierce and deeply protective. There's playfulness in the materials, but beneath the surface, the work dives deeper. Snooker, a game with colonial roots and links to British imperial history, becomes a subtle metaphor for inherited legacy. The DNA strands wind together like whakapapa itself: Mãori and Pakehã bloodlines interlaced, complicated, inseparable.

Easy/Peasy, 2017
(Stone and happy faces)
Ballast stones, originally used to steady European ships on their long voyages, were later dumped and repurposed by settlers to shore up the foundations of colonial buildings in NZ. In Wayne Youle's reimagining, the same stones are inscribed with the phrase EASY PEASY as they press down on a grinning yellow stress ball. The result is a darkly funny meditation on the weight of empire: colonial burden rendered literal, with manic optimism squashed beneath it. The work plays with the absurdity of resilience, of smiling through inherited trauma, and the strain of keeping things intact when the foundations themselves are loaded.

MICHAEL DELL - ‘ABOVE BELOW / TEMPELHOFER FELD’

Michael Dell’s work was in stark contrast. A local Nelson artist Dell's artworks are more like memories than traditional landscapes. This exhibition has its genesis in conversations Dell has with his daughter April, who lives near Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin and maintains a garden plot at the park's community gardens. On Dell’s visits to Europe in 2023 and 2024, he photographed these gardens and the grounds at Tempelhofer Feld and the resulting artwork led to this exhibition.

Michael Dell’s was inspired by Tempelhofer’s transformation from airfield to public park; a single site that embodies an ever-changing and complex city. It's a public space where the force of nature is slowly engulfing the sprawling empty landscape and all its histories. Grasses grow in the cracks of the tarmac and concrete runways, roads are dead ended by overgrowth, sections of the fields have been roped off for bird and insect life, as the seasonal cycles of the community gardens continue to turn. The paintings reference this nature and the vast number of garden beds, plants, and secluded areas that the artist witnessed.

DIANE PRINCE - ‘ACTIVIST ARTIST’

Diane Prince’s exhibition was very powerful, emphasizing her work over the decades highlighting Māori rights and women's activism. Diane Prince has experienced many years of protesting for Māori land rights during the 1970s and 1980s, and over four decades Prince’s art has portrayed the impacts of colonisation and is an inroad to discussing complex and uncomfortable histories. This exhibition underlines Prince's assertion that "art is a reflection of life and political beliefs, a vehicle for politics: politics always comes first."Leggi altro