Colin McCahon: The Titirangi Years 1953-1959

The Titirangi years are rightly regarded as the watershed of New Zealand’s most significant artist Colin McCahon (1919-87). At first he focussed on rendering the new landscape of hill, bush and bay he discovered in Titirangi, but later, especially after a career-changing trip to the United States in 1958, his work changed radically again, towards abstract imagery, religious themes, innovative use of text and number, and dramatic changes in scale and medium.

24 September 2006 — 8 October 2006  |  See exhibition detail

Joanna Margaret Paul: Subjects to Hand

When Joanna Margaret Paul passed in 2003 she had been working for nearly four decades as an artist and poet. While highly respected in both spheres, she had limited exposure to a national audience. When the many hundreds of drawings left in her Wanganui studio (most of which had never been exhibited) came to light, it was clear that the practice of drawing was central to her art: as was the fact that the drawings constitute an exceptional body of work that demands to be more widely known.

15 February 2007 — 9 April 2007  |  See exhibition detail

Judy Millar: Keeping You, You, Keeping Me, Me

Keeping You, You, Keeping Me, Me is Judy Millar's exciting response to her recent experience as the inaugural McCahon House residency artist, living and working in the new studio built next to McCahon House in French Bay, Titirangi.

15 February 2007 — 9 April 2007  |  See exhibition detail

Roger Donaldson: ALL DOGS SHOT

Best known for the making of landmark movies including Sleeping Dogs, Smash Palace and The World’s Fastest Indian, Roger Donaldson has always armed himself with a camera. ALL DOGS SHOT, presents Donaldson’s first public exhibition of photographs - a stunning collection of black and white photographs shot in New Zealand and around the world.

14 April 2007 — 10 June 2007  |  See exhibition detail

Wild Creations

The exhibition brings together a wide variety of artistic styles and mediums from a strong collection of artists all passionate about the wilder places in New Zealand. Each artist has responded to their chosen location - its physical scale, its challenges, its many layered histories and the sense of isolation - in their own unique way.

14 June 2007 — 12 August 2007  |  See exhibition detail

Stanley Palmer: To the Harbour

Highly revered painter and printmaker, Stanley Palmer, has produced a stunning collection of monoprints based on his childhood recollections of the Manukau Harbour. Capturing the time and place with his evocative story and illustrations, the resulting beautifully crafted book is part children’s book – part memoir.

17 August 2007 — 7 October 2007  |  See exhibition detail

In Good Form: The Abstract Art of Roy Good

Roy Good’s paintings are, without exception, instances of modernist abstraction. They are consistently inventive deployments of the ‘building blocks’ of painting – shape, colour, line, space. This survey exhibition, spanning the years from 1968 – 2007, reveals the level of invention and aesthetic and painterly thinking embodied by Good’s paintings.

13 December 2007 — 10 February 2008  |  See exhibition detail

Gavin Hipkins: Second Empire

The McCahon residency programme links a new generation of artists with Colin McCahon’s 1950s era. Current residency artist, photographer Gavin Hipkins, is quite literally bringing the past and present together in his recent series of superimposed images – Second Empire.

14 February 2008 — 13 April 2008  |  See exhibition detail

Boundless Books: Steiner Press Books 1992-2008

Elizabeth Steiner has made the specialist subject of bookmaking into a fine art. With precise attention to detail, playful inventiveness and a well honed sense of colour and composition, Elizabeth has crafted a beautiful collection of books over the 17 years that she has been practising the craft.

7 August 2008 — 5 October 2008  |  See exhibition detail

POST Stitch: Contemporary Stitched Work

POST Stitch is a nation-wide textile exhibition, initiated by Lopdell House Gallery involving over 250 textile and letter enthusiasts of all ages from across the country. The exhibition brings together words, letters, stitching, fabric and paper in a colourful collection of 358 postcard size pieces and 26 large quilt size works from some of New Zealand’s best contemporary textile artists.

11 December 2008 — 8 February 2009  |  See exhibition detail

Len Castle: Mountain to the Sea

Mountain to the Sea is a celebration of the inspiration that many aspects of New Zealand’s landscape have been for renowned New Zealand ceramic artist Len Castle. The exhibition contains approximately sixty works from the Volcanic and Sea Secrets series that Castle has been developing since the 1990s, alongside photographic images of the landscape, and poetry by ten leading New Zealand poets.

12 February 2009 — 13 April 2009  |  See exhibition detail

Adrian Jackman: Mind the Gap

The gap between a railway station platform and the train's boarding step is a dangerous space, as Adrian Jackman observes from his studio window which takes in a suburban Auckland train station. Gaps have at one time or another invoked fear in most of us, whether it be cracks in the pavement, the gaps between domestic decking floorboards, and even the gaps a painter must negotiate in constructing a composition.

17 April 2009 — 24 May 2009  |  See exhibition detail

John Madden: Silent Resonance of a Turbulent Coastline

Karekare is one of those magical places with the uncanny ability to capture your imagination, your spirit, and your breath. Anyone who has spent time wandering along the wild west beaches between the pounding breakers and the rugged Waitakere Ranges will be familiar with the sense of power and awe this coastline exudes. One man knows that feeling and place more than most.

16 July 2009 — 23 August 2009  |  See exhibition detail

Pat Hanly: BLAST!

A generation ago in 1987, New Zealand passed legislation to make the country nuclear free. To celebrate this wonderful achievement writer, Trish Gribben and Lopdell House Gallery are publishing a children’s book featuring Pat Hanly’s anti-nuclear paintings and Gil Hanly’s documentary photographs.

27 August 2009 — 11 October 2009  |  See exhibition detail

Portage Ceramic Awards 2009

This, the ninth Portage Ceramic Awards, exhibits a wide range of creative ceramic works from around New Zealand. These works have been selected by the judge Scott Chamberlin, Professor of Ceramics at the University of Colorado. His selection this year emphasises the creative and playful side of the ceramic canon in the ongoing dialectic between fine art and craft art.

15 October 2009 — 6 December 2009  |  See exhibition detail

Lisa Reihana: Nga Hau e Wha

McCahon residency artist, Lisa Reihana presents Nga Hau e Wha, a series of evocative photographs that describe geographic locations, speak of familial connections and re-imagine Maori portraiture.

11 February 2010 — 11 April 2010  |  See exhibition detail

Don Binney: Drawing the West Coast

Compiled by celebrated artist Don Binney, this beautiful little hardback book combines Binney’s delicate coloured pencil drawings of the stunning Waitakere coast, with text that takes the reader on a fascinating journey of the area.

15 April 2010 — 7 June 2010  |  See exhibition detail

Martin Basher: High Class Boner Meds/Paradise Sale

Martin Basher’s exhibition uses iconic everyday images and objects to ask questions about what our consumer society wants and believes in. His work features exquisite photorealist paintings of beaches and hands, collages, cryptic placards and signs, and sculptural assemblages featuring a variety of consumer goods and fluorescent lights.

5 August 2010 — 5 September 2010  |  See exhibition detail

Under: Curated by Karl Chitham

Surrounded by verdant native bush, Lopdell House is the perfect venue for an exhibition, which investigates the dichotomies of New Zealand landscape. Under is a probing of the way we navigate territories.

5 August 2010 — 3 October 2010  |  See exhibition detail

Where Are We?

Where Are We? the exhibition, seeks to explore some of the rich stories behind the names we have given to our towns, cities, rivers and mountains of New Zealand and celebrates the launch of the new revised edition of A.W. Reed’s 'Place Names of New Zealand,' edited by Peter Dowling and published by Penguin.

9 December 2010 — 13 February 2011  |  See exhibition detail

Peter Siddell: Paintings 1970-2010

For those of us who live out West, Peter’s paintings have a special familiarity and resonance. A recurring view in Peter’s works is looking westwards towards the Waitakere Ranges, often displaying the dramatic lighting at dusk as the sun leaves the day. In recent years both Sir Peter and his wife, artist Dame Sylvia Siddell have been very unwell so we are particularly grateful to them and their family for making this exhibition possible.

30 June 2011 — 21 August 2011  |  See exhibition detail

Wood for the Trees

Wood for the Trees brings together five divergent artists (John Lyall, Michael Shepherd, Russell Moses, Tanya Ruka, Derek March) – incorporating sculpture, painting, history, mathematics, moving image, sound and photography – each with thought provoking visions of forests, and mankind’s use or misuse of them.

25 August 2011 — 9 October 2011  |  See exhibition detail

Tree House: McCahon House Residency Five Years On

Tree House: McCahon Residency Five Years On features memento works from the 15 artists who have held the residency to date. Each work was made as part of a limited edition during their stay and sold to collectors to support the continuation of the residency programme by The McCahon House Trust.

8 December 2011 — 12 February 2012  |  See exhibition detail

Ben Cauchi: The Lunar Apogee

Ben Cauchi, the 16th artist in residence at the McCahon House studio has spent the summer months creating a new series of work capturing his surroundings at French Bay – but in no ordinary way.

17 February 2012 — 12 March 2012  |  See exhibition detail

Clay Bodvin: Hybrid Memories and the Still Life of Trivial Objects

Clay Bodvin’s multi layered graphic works are like kaleidoscopes – rich in colour, pattern, texture and illusion. Originally from Seattle, but now a Titirangi resident, Bodvin’s new series of works have taken an autobiographical turn. Utilising photography, illustration and animation and imagery from his childhood, Bodvin has merged fragments of other times and places to create intriguing memory pictures.

20 April 2012 — 10 June 2012  |  See exhibition detail

Mary Macpherson: Old New World

With a keen eye for detail and irony, Wellington poet and photographer, Mary Macpherson has spent seven years travelling around the country documenting the changing face of small town New Zealand. This has culminated in an intriguing exhibition of 46 colour photographs along with a significant new book of New Zealand photography, entitled Old New World.

15 June 2012 — 5 August 2012  |  See exhibition detail