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Mystery, elegance, drama, glamour, desire. Celebrated New Zealand artist Heather Straka brings these elements together with a painter’s sensibility and an eye for style in her latest body of work.

Like something from 1930s noir film or Agatha Christie novel, a group of sophisticated strangers turn up at a rundown hotel seeking sanctuary. From what? We don’t know.

Their secrets remain just out of reach, but each character has an elaborate backstory to guess at. And, of course, there are the fabulous clothes.

Given Artbay’s location above a Louis Vuitton store it is only appropriate that Straka has included some of her Louis Vuitton-themed photographs. Style and elegance complement each other in absolute luxury.

Straka is a master of the sexy and subversive. She knows how to blend Hollywood glamour and the Baroque Old Master high manner with fashion, erotic charge, and political subtext.

Who is this diverse cast of characters? Why are they here? Can they leave?

Straka touches on a range of contemporary issues including Covid lockdowns, MIQ, and the politics of diversity and identity, but seduces us into thinking about these things with her marvellously theatrical aesthetic.

Location

Artbay Gallery, Queenstown