Adventures in Alphabet Art
Ape to Zip is a light-hearted art alphabet adventure on now at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. It is designed to captivate younger audiences, and the young-at-heart.
Designed for children aged from three to 11 years, the art is accompanied by poems, jokes and puzzles. Running in alphabetic order, many of the words connected to artworks will be obvious and easy to find.
It opens with Ape, a wonderful woodcut by New Zealander E. Mervyn Taylor, and ends with expatriate Frances Hodgkins’ enigmatic Zipp, painted during her later years in wartime England.
Most of the artists are New Zealanders, with works in a broad range of styles and media – from paintings and prints to ceramics and sculpture.
“For children, the exploration becomes an achievable task and a lively, educational experience,” says exhibition curator and father of three, Ken Hall. “Ape to Zip brings together baked beans with carrots and dirty dishes, painful encounters (O for Ouch) with pistol-packing pirates, sea monsters, unicorns, a werewolf, and much more.”
Related events in the Gallery include the Alphabet Adventures holiday quiz — 9 to 24 July, 10am to 4pm — a fun quiz for children based on I Spy with my Little Eye.
- Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu is free to visit. It is open daily 10am-5pm with a late night on Wednesdays until 9pm. Other exhibitions include Island Life: Robin White, until 5 June; The Scenic Eye: Visual Arts and the Theatre, until 26 June; Homelight until 31 July 05.
- http://www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz
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