Event Details
Aug 11
Muse Art Gallery
Unsettled Ground is an exhibition about the enduring resonance of place. It considers not only the landscapes we shape, but the places that continue to shape us, lingering in memory long after we have left them behind.
In this new body of work, Zoë Marsden explores overlooked and idiosyncratic buildings that exist on the edges of memory and purpose.
Beginning with real places encountered throughout New Zealand and abroad, Marsden reimagines each location in the studio, gradually stripping away geographical specificity to create paintings guided by atmosphere rather than documentation, rendering them as quiet psychological portraits.
Drawn to structures that have outlived their original function or slipped from everyday notice, Marsden depicts buildings suspended between past and present. Through meticulous observation, heightened colour and an uncanny stillness, these works invite viewers to pause and look more closely. Familiar yet quietly disquieting, the paintings reveal how architecture can hold memory, emotion and traces of human presence long after people have departed.