Margaret Lawlor-Bartlett’s first exhibition in 17 years opened on Tuesday evening. The unifying question of the show ‘What Will We Leave Them?’ concerns our ecological fate, with the works presenting states of grace and failure in the individual and society.

Working often in the depths of red and black, the reds connect blood and the vulcanism of the planet, and the blacks bring out the powers in shadowed slopes and indigenous forest. Painting in volcanic zones, Margaret’s painterly language is underpinned by the ground beneath her feet.

Speaker Richard Wolfe spoke poignantly at the exhibition opening, highlighting Lawlor-Bartlett’s life-long interest in our ecological future, her resistence to conformity in her artwork in her earlier years at Elam, and acknowledging her categorization as a social protest artist.

Click here to view Dionne Christian’s article published in the New Zealand Herald .

Margaret’s works have been exhibited in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally. Her work is represented across NZ, Australia, China, Crete, Denmark, France, Japan, UK and the USA.