A dose of non-reality: Country's best abstract art to go on show at Hamilton’s Artspost Gallery

Saturday, 13 June 2026

Waikato artist Joslyn Hobbis, one of the participants in the upcoming exhibition A Glimpse of Abstraction, creates works “outside of the confines of what is usually considered the standard rectangle”.

Art does not necessarily have to depict actual things. Sometimes it need only depict an emotion, or an idea of something.

Thirty-six examples of ideas and emotions as art are going up on the walls of the Artspost Gallery in Hamilton, in preparation for a new exhibition that will begin on Saturday afternoon.

Titled A Glimpse of Abstraction, the collection is comprised of works selected from entries to this year’s New Zealand Painting and Printmaking Awards, run by the Waikato Society of Arts.

While the 60 works deemed to be the best in that competition have already been exhibited at Artspost back in March, the art now being put up for display have been chosen from the remaining 350 entries from artists entering that competition.

The person doing the choosing was WSA president Carole Shepheard, one of the country’s foremost print artists. Best known for her printmaking - which has graced the cover of the School Journal, among other publications - her work is held in collections throughout the world.

A former professor at Auckland University’s Elam School of Fine Arts, Shepheard these days runs the Kāwhia Old Post Office Gallery and Shop and remains very active in the art world.

Julie Johnstone, the Waikato Society of Arts’ operations manager, helps hang some of the works that will be featured in A Glimpse of Abstraction.

She is also one of the best-equipped people to explain what abstract art actually is.

“Understanding abstraction in art is to accept there are many pathways to navigate, and abstract painting has powerful limitations at the same time as immense freedom,” she said.

“It is a multi-faceted genre that has no specific form or shared vision, but more an emphasis on a different way of ‘seeing’.

“It is a place where many artists venture into territory that often begins with a loose idea or feeling that they then allow to develop, change or morph … It demands slow contemplation, silence and a willingness to accept the mental, psychological, and emotional aspects of the field.”

There are numerous artists who have become world famous for their abstracts, including Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock - and often art-lovers have to pay much to see their works.

This exhibition is free, and features the work of artists from Kaitaia to Dunedin. It will open to the public at 1pm on Saturday.

At 3pm the same day Shepheard will conduct a floor talk on the exhibition and the meaning of abstract art alongside five of the participating artists, including master’s graduate Joslyn Hobbis.

A Glimpse of Abstraction will run until July 4 in Artspost’s Chartwell Gallery.

At the same time a number of other exhibitions will open at the Victoria St institution, including shows by Martin Nečas, Rebecca Hinemoa-Smith, the WSA’s watercolour class and artists from the Grey Street Studios art group.