​Pantomime


Marie Strauss






Friday August 2 - 21

In the exhibition Pantomime there is a unique fusion of eccentricity, ambiguity and absurdity. Strauss works across multiple media, from painting to ceramics to printmaking, her work united by an interest in animals, both real and imaginary, rendered in boldly expressive form.

Weeping Bird, glazed porcelain and mixed media 2024

Wilfully expressionist work can be found at Olga, where Marie Strauss mixes the style with her love for animals and a taste for the quirky. Strauss’s works cover a range of different media, with small eccentric ceramic-led mixed media animal heads, bold, bright paintings, and another mixed work combining lino print and collage.
The animal-head sculptures and absurdist images, none more so than "Monkey with fascinator", a grotesque head topped with black and white feathers. The deliberately distorted heads become the characters of the pantomime of the exhibition’s title. There is a charm to several of these pieces, notably a pink pig and a series of birds’ heads. The assortment of heads is reflected in the lino and collage work, the silver-grey Masks on my mantelpiece.
If this latter work is muted in colour, the same cannot be said for the exuberant oil paints which complete the exhibition. Several of these pay homage to the artist’s inspirations from the world of classical painting, with Ensor, Matisse, Rembrandt, and Bonnard all name-checked in the titles of the works. The same series of figurine heads reappears in Ode to Ensor, whereas works such as Ode to Bonnard and Matisse’s Vase are vibrant still lifes.
By James Dignan, Otago Daily Times, August 24

Marie Strauss, Ode to Ensor, oil on canvas, 2024