Picture by Tim Cuff - 19 January 2020 - MakeShiftSpaces, Trafalgar Street, and Bridge Street's former Graham's Trading building, Nelson, New Zealand

White Gold

Sally Burton – Art Installation / Storytelling
169 Bridge Street, November 2019 – July 2020

About Sally Burton

Sally Burton is a well-respected and established Nelson-based artist who has a strong reputation as a narrative painter with a focus on historical and colonial subjects. Sally’s work is represented in national and international collections. Her three works in The Suter Art Gallery’s collection are regarded as amongst its most popular and enduring art works.

About White Gold

White Gold was developed as an installation for The Suter Art Gallery in 2009. It then travelled to Forrester Gallery in Oamaru and Southland Museum & Art Gallery in Invercargill before DairyNZ installed it in their Head Office in Hamilton until 2018. Living next to the O’Connor dairy farm on the Waimea Plains, Sally had observed the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of the dairy industry. Her portraits of cows are based on records of the O’Connor family farm and reflect aspects of the dairy industry and use of by-products such as Friesian meat and leather.

Make/Shift Spaces + White Gold

Make/Shift Spaces identified the extensive windows of Graham’s Trading as potential for major storytelling. This site and its adjoining building were scheduled for demolition and MSS was able to secure and occupy the space until that process began. With support from Nelson Pine Industries, MSS boxed out windows and improved the area as an exhibition space for Sally to represent White Gold. The project received major interest with the public and garnered a lot of positive feedback.

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