[{In to the light}] is a new body of work arising from the artist's research into the European tradition of Vanitas painting and her exploration of mythical and religious stories addressing mortality and the transience of life. As Art Vanitas employed symbols such as skulls, rotting food or fading flowers to suggest the inevitability of death, so too Niki uses stories she has grown up with and objects she has found to create works playing with themes of love, loss and life.

While this exhibition marks a new thematic direction in her practice, going beyond themes of Polynesian identity, colonisation and migration, prominent in Pacific art, that have characterised her work to date, its material qualities remain distinctly her own. The ongoing use of found objects - from $2 Shop synthetic flowers and foliage, to op-shop and auction house finds - is mixed with a tactile delight in making and a close attention to detail, derived from her early training as a jeweller.

Niki Hastings-McFall is recognised as a significant Pacific artist and has been included in more than a hundred exhibitions locally and internationally. For more information, look under 'artists' on this website.

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