Burnt Offerings brings together three practices that understand materials as collaborators rather than passive substances. Fire, gravity, carbon and stone each possess their own agency, histories and rhythms, shaping the work as profoundly as the artists themselves.

For Kaye McGarva, carbon gathered from the aftermath of a neighbouring fire enters her paintings not as symbol but as substance. It becomes part of an ongoing exploration into perception: how we construct meaning from fragments, folds and traces. Familiar forms dissolve and re-emerge, inviting us to look again. Her restrained references to Colin McCahon acknowledge not certainty, but the enduring search for truth within an unstable world.

Te Ara Hihiko embrace fire as process, allowing charring to become both mark-making and memory. Rescued kauri from the fire is transformed into stunning wall-hung sculptures that invoke the spirit of Mahuika, Māori Goddess of Fire.

Chauncey Flay works with the slower forces of geology, balancing raw greywacke against precisely resolved planes that speak of gravity, tension and deep time. Together, these works remind us that transformation is rarely an act of imposition. It is a negotiation with the inherent character of materials.

Rather than dwelling on destruction, Burnt Offerings considers what survives it. Carbon, stone and ash become not the end of a story, but the beginning of another. The exhibition invites us to see these materials not as remnants, but as witnesses—holding within them the quiet record of change, resilience and renewal.

VIEW KAYE MCGARVA'S ARTIST PAGE

VIEW TE ARA HIHIKO'S ARTIST PAGE

VIEW CHAUNCEY FLAY'S ARTIST PAGE