OPENING EVENT: Wednesday 31 August, 5.30-7.30pm

An exhibition of new work by Claudia Kogachi where she has experimented with new materials adding the use of oil stick to her artistic toolbox. The result is a series of works combining her painting practise with drawing techniques. The works are spooky - castles, dragons, bats, wolves, vampires and ghosts haunt and occupy each work. Her trademark figures are retained too in the larger two works - self portraits as mermaids and centaurs bringing a playful fantastical element to the exhibition.  Hand carved frames by the artist, complete each work.

Claudia Kogachi was born in Awaji-shima, Japan, in 1995. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. In 2019, she won the New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Award. Recent exhibitions include: Heaven Must be Missing an Angel, Jhana Millers Gallery, 2022: Hot Girls with IBS, 2021, Hot Lunch, Ōtautahi Christchurch; There’s No I In Team, 2021, The Dowse, Te Awakairangi Lower Hutt; New Artists Show 2020, Artspace Aotearoa, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland; Obaachan during the lockdown, Wahiawā, Hawaiʻi, Te Tuhi, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland; Uncle Gagi, play_station, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington; and Everyone Has a Horse Phase, Sanderson Contemporary, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland (all 2020).

Kogachi was a 2022 Artist in Residence at Kare Kare House in June / July. She has recently been announced as the the Deborah Porch Award - a collaborative award between Artspace Aotearoa and Australia Council for the Arts. Kogachi will travel to Brisbane in early September for the residency at Artisan Queensland.

This is her first exhibition with Melanie Roger Gallery.