Reflecting on Exposure and My Final Year at Massey
Posted December 2019
It feels surreal that Exposure, our graduate show, has come and gone—and with it, my final year of art school. The last few months have been intense, rewarding, and full of reflection. This year, for the first time, I really felt like I found something that felt like my practice. After years of experimentation and uncertainty, it’s been exciting (and honestly, a bit of a relief) to land on a body of work that feels conceptually strong and personally connected.My work this year has been centred around our relationship with space and light—specifically how we perceive ourselves in relation to the spaces around us. I’ve become increasingly interested in the way light behaves in architectural environments, and how that can be captured or extended through material. Reflective surfaces, minimal structures, subtle interventions—I want my work to hold space for quiet perception and moments of awareness.A big shift came when I started working with acrylic and perspex. I became really drawn to their industrial qualities and their ability to hold, reflect, and refract light. I began collecting offcuts and playing with thickness, finish, and transparency—building temporary structures directly in response to the space I was working in. It became a very process-driven practice, guided by both material limitations and intuitive decisions. It wasn’t about planning something perfect, but about learning through making.Working with reflective surfaces opened up a new layer of interaction—bringing the viewer into the work, literally. I loved seeing people pause, notice their own reflection, become aware of their body in space. It shifted the experience from passive viewing to something more participatory, and that’s something I want to continue exploring.
My influences this year have ranged from the California Light and Space movement to New York Minimalism, but I’ve also been thinking a lot about what it means to work within those frameworks from the perspective of a young, female, kiwi artist. I don’t want to just replicate those histories—I want to learn from them and build something that feels grounded in my own context and voice.Exposure gave me the chance to pull everything together—my ideas, research, and material experimentation—into a body of work I feel proud of. It was the first time I really felt like my practice was cohesive. And while there’s still a lot to figure out, it’s exciting to be leaving Massey with a clearer sense of direction and a strong foundation to build on.I’m so grateful for the people who supported me this year—my tutors, peers, family, and the incredible team behind Exposure. It’s been a massive year, and I’m excited to take a bit of a breather over summer before jumping into what comes next.
