From the portable feng-shui generators that sit in the corners of Asian noodle houses to the classier variations in elegant corporate foyers, each of us, it seems, holds a fondness for at least one puddle in our daily landscape.

Canary presents
The Water-Feature Show

Co-ordinated by Finn Ferrier

Paula Booker
Emma Blomeley
Kah-Bee Chow
Finn Ferrier
Ben Tankard

Exhibition 13 - 23 April 2005

If the urbanism of an area could be estimated by the ubiquity of water features within its circumference, this city could stake its claim to be bona-fide urban.i It is almost as though, at some point, there was a universal unanimous vote for water features as the most favourable method of urban beautification amongst the urban planners.

Perhaps the vote was due to the ability of the water feature to satisfy nature-wish inclinations within an urban space. Loosely, nature wishes are the isolated/contained sights, spaces, monuments or objects that romanticize nature, a kind of fetishized dislocation, and those which have adopted and re-interpreted this aesthetic.ii

In this exhibition, co-ordinated by Canary's own nature-wisher and puddle-mapper Finn Ferrier, five artists explore the water feature through facsimile, homage and grand plans. Trickles, eddies and puddles abound in the gallery. Wet! Wet! Wet!

i I met a recent immigrant at the bus stop the other day who said that Auckland, beyond Queen St, was like "an outmoded 17th century village" I suggested this was rather charming to which he disagreed. It however must also be taken in the context that he was a highly-qualified professional who had no choice but to work in StarMart in this country - this however, I understand, could be read as a simplistic assumption in reasoning his lack of enthusiasm for Auckland-Charm.

ii From Kah-Bee Chow's article 'Love Loathe Acropolis' in the soon-to-be published Canary Annual 2005