Threads of Modernism | Talk and Demonstration

Celebrate the closing weekend of Modern Women: Flight of Time with an exploration of pioneering textile artist Ilse von Randow, led by weaving and textile artist Kathryn Tsui and Julia Waite, curator of Modern Women.

This talk and demonstration will highlight Randow’s significant contributions to Aotearoa New Zealand’s weaving history, focusing on two of her key works: Woven Kauri, 1954 – a collaboration with Colin McCahon, now lost – and her curtains for the Auckland City Art Gallery, 1958, currently on display in Modern Women: Flight of Time. 

Tsui will share insights from her research into the archive of von Randow’s weaving samples and notebooks, held at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial and the von Randow house, designed by Group Architects member Bill Wilson, where it is thought the curtains were woven. The talk will also explore contemporary responses to von Randow’s work by artists Ruth Buchanan and Dr Bronwyn Lloyd.

Following the talk, Tsui will demonstrate von Randow’s weaving techniques to make Woven Kauri and the Auckland City Art Gallery Curtains.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn more about the artistry and history behind these remarkable works.

Bio 

Kathryn Tsui is a textile-based artist who works primarily in handweaving and beading and currently lives in Tairua in Te Tara-o-te-Ika-a-Māui Coromandel Peninsula. Tsui’s work is held in the public art collections of Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand, The Dowse Art Museum, The University of Waikato Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato and Tūhura Otago Museum. Solo exhibitions include: cloud ribbon at Objectspace, 2024 and redwhiteblue at Masterworks Gallery, 2023. She was an artist-in-residence at Driving Creek Pottery in 2023 and received a Creative New Zealand Arts Grant, 2023–24. A self-taught weaver, Tsui holds a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Auckland University of Technology Te Wānanga Aronui o Tāmaki Makau Rau (2007).

Julia Waite is Curator, New Zealand Art | Kairauhī, Toi nō Aotearoa at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki and the curator of Modern Women: Flight of Time. Her research interests are focused on the development of modern art in New Zealand and global modernisms. In 2015, Waite curated the touring exhibition Freedom and Structure: Cubism and New Zealand Art 1930–1960, which revealed the impacts of Cubism on three artists and repositioned Colin McCahon in a wider network. Past projects she has co-curated include Gordon Walters: New Vision (2018) and Louise Henderson: From Life (2019). She is a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau.