Gavin Hurley, "Still Growing Up", opening event and exhibition

OPENING EVENT: Wednesday, 8 October, 5.30-7.30pm
EXHIBITION: 8 October - 1 November. 2025

In early 2025, Gavin Hurley’s solo exhibition “Growing Up” wowed audiences at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery in Pōneke Wellington. Curated by (then) director Jaenine Parkinson, the exhibition of works across painting and collage, dissected various historical characters who were held up as ideal exemplars during Hurley’s time growing up in late 20th century New Zealand. A selection of these commissioned works will be presented for the first time in Tamaki Makaura as part of our new exhibition “Still Growing Up”.

Hurley documented a collective experience many of us shared growing up in Aotearoa with – until recently - a largely myopic colonial point of view. We have all seen Captain Cook – and others – on our bank notes and as statues or portraits put on pedestals – quite literally in many cases. As Generation X, we couldn’t avoid it, and like it or not – it shaped our own narratives and our sense of who we were as both individuals and as a nation growing up. Aotearoa is growing up but it’s important to not forget our past, so mistakes are not repeated and so we can move together towards a more equitable society by honoring the principles of Te Tiriti.

Rita was the only woman in this exhibition and is the central figure in our new exhibition. She is, of course Rita Angus – whose work has been hugely influential on Hurley’s practice. She too, is part of his growing up – of his journey as an artist.

“Locally Rita Angus, one of the small number of women painted by Hurley, has also been inspirational....the similarities in style between the two artists are apparent. Both favour orderliness restraint, coolness and an apparent lack of emotion.” (Paul Diamond, “Gavin Hurley: Growing Up”, National Portrait Gallery of NZ catalogue publication)

Hurley has made new work too in response to his time spent in Pōneke Wellington developing and presenting the Portrait Gallery exhibition. He visited the Bolton St Cemetery and has responded to Angus’ iconic work “Flight” (1969) – her last completed painting. In the early 1960s, Rita Angus was horrified to hear that thousands of graves would be shifted from Wellington’s Bolton Street Cemetery to make way for a new urban motorway. Angus was keenly aware of her Anglo-Scottish heritage and New Zealand’s 19th-century history, and saw both reflected in the colonial cemetery. Angus visited the site regularly before and during the demolition, making careful records of specific headstones and inscriptions. A lifelong pacifist, she was drawn to a carved stone dove among the piled-up headstones at the demolition site.

They are all part of a journey. The journey of growing up.

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