BURNT OFFERINGS

A devastating fire at a rural workshop and studio complex on the outskirts of Havelock North has become the catalyst for a new exhibition opening at Muse Art Gallery this July.

Titled Burnt Offerings, the exhibition brings together Hawke’s Bay artists Kaye McGarva, Te Ara Hihiko collaborators Jacob Scott and Jason Kendrick, and Nelson-based sculptor Chauncey Flay in a body of work shaped by destruction, recovery and renewal. Through painting, carving and the use of charred materials salvaged from the blaze, the exhibition explores themes of materiality, atonement, and new beginnings.

For McGarva, the subject matter is deeply personal. Her studio sits within the same cluster of buildings affected by the January fire, which destroyed a neighbouring shed, vehicles, and a specialty mushroom-growing business. While her own studio escaped major damage, the experience left a lasting impression.

“Fire is devastating and destructive, but it can also represent rebirth, like the phoenix rising from the ashes,” says McGarva. “There’s also a strong connection with Matariki and the idea of renewal and reflection.”

The exhibition grew organically from conversations with Scott and Kendrick, who frequently use the Japanese charring technique yakisugi in their carving practice. After visiting the site and witnessing the aftermath firsthand, the artists began discussing ways to incorporate the fire - both literally and symbolically - into a collaborative exhibition.

Some of the works feature large Kauri planks recovered from the burnt shed. Protected by the way they’d been stacked, parts of the timber retained enough structural integrity to be carved and reworked. Other elements, including custom-built frames, have been deliberately charred as part of the process. 

For McGarva, charcoal sourced from outside her studio has become both medium and narrative, informing new works that respond directly to her experience of the fire and its aftermath.

“There was something compelling about creating beauty from something so disastrous,” she says. “I hope people connect with that sense of resilience and possibility.”

Te Ara Hihiko - meaning ‘the creative pathway’ – is a Hawke’s Bay-based collective led by Scott and Kendrick, recognised for its contemporary Māori carving practice and large-scale CNC-milled works installed across Aotearoa, including in the redeveloped Hawke’s Bay airport, Kaweka Hospital, and Auckland’s Viaduct Harbour.

McGarva is an established New Zealand painter; her work often blurring the boundaries between abstraction and realism, without reference to subject or scale. “I like to explore the idea that our eyes are not objective tools for observing the world as it is, but active participants in creating our reality,” she says.

The collaboration between McGarva, Te Ara Hihiko, and Flay in Burnt Offerings brings contemporary Māori carving, reclaimed materials and deeply personal storytelling, shaped by themes of resilience, destruction, renewal and rebirth.

Burnt Offerings runs at Muse Art Gallery, Havelock North, from 7 July to 8 August.