Exhibition: And Then...

We all start at the beginning, but what happens next is up to you.

Let your curiosity lead the way this winter in the Whānau Gallery and choose your own adventure with inspiring works from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery collection by Saskia Leek, Norman Rockwell, Nicola Jackson, Peter Peryer, Simon Denny, and Walter Crane, among others.

Who will you be? Where will you go? How will you get there? Who will you meet? Make your own choices, create your own stories, share them, and start again.

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This exhibition invites visitors into a space where artworks open a range of narrative possibilities. Each work holds a fragment of a story. Whether a figure, a scene, or a moment of change, it extends outward into our imagination. Meaning continues beyond the edge of the frame.

As visitors move through the gallery, they are encouraged to form their own paths between works. Images can be encountered in sequence or in unexpected proximity. New relationships emerge through attention, memory, and return.

Drawing on fairy tale logic, mythic structure and choose-your-own-adventure storytelling, this exhibition understands that narratives are something that form between artworks. A journey may begin in one image and shift to another. A single scene may suggest a beginning, a turning point, or an ending depending on how it is encountered.

Many of the works in this exhibition carry a strong sense of story. Alongside the paintings and landscapes are illustrations of narrative scenes. There is a witch stepping out from the pages of a fairy tale, dramatic moments inspired by Arabian Nights, a daring escape from a castle tower, or the quiet return of a wounded knight to a church door. Some works feel full of action and suspense while others suggest quieter moments of uncertainty or reflection. Together, they invite viewers to wonder what has just happened and what might happen next.

To support the experience, visitors may choose to work with illustrated cards drawn directly from the artworks. These cards extend the exhibition into the hands of the viewer. Collected during the visit, they become traces of attention, fragments of what has been seen and experienced. Arranged and rearranged, they reveal new connections between works and allow stories to take shape in multiple directions.

At the centre of the exhibition is the act of looking as a kind of making. To look is to interpret, to select, and to imagine. Visual art becomes a language where meaning is formed through observation and response. As visitors move through the exhibition, images begin to generate narrative thought.

This process resonates closely with the ways in which we read and write. In both, meaning is created through attention, inference, and connection. Visual art offers another mode through which these skills are developed and extended, allowing narrative thinking to emerge through images as well as text.

And then… encourages visitors to see themselves as active participants
in the making of meaning.

Each visitor brings a different perspective.

Each visitor chooses their own path.

And then… what happens next?

That part is up to you.

[Image: SASKIA LEEK Summertime 1 (Bicycle) 1999. Acrylic and varnish on board. Collection of Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Purchased 2025 with funds from Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society.]