Diamond Harbour, Banks Peninsula

Substratum references the foundations on which everything is formed and depends; both the physical Earth itself, and ways of thinking about and seeing the world. In Stoddart Cottage’s April exhibition, Moana Lee and Giselle Weir focus on weeds and insects, historically undervalued and sometimes reviled members of our ecosystems. Lee’s anthotypes made from plant extracts, and Weir’s work using watercolour, gouache and embroidery, expose the layers of interconnectivity that can exist in unexpected places. 

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Giselle Weir is an artist living and working in Ōtautahi. Her work tends to feature the environment and living things, with a keen interest in the way things interact together and the systems that exist in nature and human made worlds. Weir enjoys analysing the places where things come together and the ways they cross over. She has a tendency for fine, detailed work, primarily using watercolour on paper but is also known to bring in other materials and experiment in her making. 

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Moana Lee utilises natural processes such as light sensitive plant juices to capture images of weeds in the form of anthotypes. She develops film with homemade nontoxic caffenol, in this project utilising water gathered from Hinewai streams. The work is framed using reclaimed pine furniture selvages from a roadside. These methods all amplify the marriage of meaning with materiality within the work.