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I felt like some watcher, divining skies | Jamie Chapman & Hayley Theyers Exhibition @ Hangar Gallery
Jamie Chapman presents a series of intimate paintings while Hayley Theyers exhibits a collection of Surrealist photographs. Exhibition at Hangar Gallery, Whangarei.
‘I felt like some watcher, divining skies’ Exhibition opening preview night at Hangar Gallery 5:30-8pm Friday 26th September 2025
Full exhibition dates 26/09/25 – 24/10/25
Hangar Gallery Website Event Page
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Jamie Chapman is a contemporary painter based in Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland, New Zealand. Born in the United Kingdom, his family moved to Whangārei when he was about two years old, and that early life in Northland has informed much of his artistic sensibility. (jamiechapman.co.nz)
After high school in Whangārei, Chapman pursued studies at Whitecliffe College of Arts & Design in Auckland, later completing both a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) and a Master of Fine Arts at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. (foenandergalleries.co.nz)
Chapman’s painting practice lives at the intersection of figurative oil painting and image-based media. He draws inspiration from both photographic and filmic modes—altering source images via cropping, shifts in colour, reframing, and other transformations—and uses these tools to question how we see and understand pictures in a contemporary world. (foenandergalleries.co.nz)
He is known for several “series” of works: portraits, self-portraits, and explorations of mood, atmosphere, and altered vision. His recent works show a loosened brushstroke, more expressive colour, and a willingness to surprise both himself and his audience. (creativematters.co.nz)
Jamie Chapman has won a number of recognitions, including the Joe Raynes Scholarship (University of Auckland, 2012) and the National Youth Art Award (ArtsPost, Hamilton, 2013). His works are held in public collections, including the Wallace Arts Trust.
Hayley Theyers is a photographic artist based in Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand. Her work inhabits the borderlands between memory, myth, and the imagination — often drawing on childhood stories, fairytales, folklore, and the uncanny to explore themes of gender, identity, and the inner terrain of dreams. (artache.com)
Her style is theatrical, whimsical, and richly symbolic; she frequently reinterprets familiar myths through a feminist lens, employing visual metaphors and narrative fragments to interrogate the ways we see women, nature, and the liminal spaces between waking and sleeping. (artache.com)
Some notable exhibitions of Theyers’ work include:
- “Ex Libris” (Photospace Gallery, 2022) — a series inspired by early illustrated Victorian children’s books, reading as an exploration of how books shape memory and imagination. (photospacegallery.com)
- “Suite of Tales” (Pea Sea Art, Port Chalmers, 2023) — intertwining dream imagery, childhood objects, and the stories hidden in shadows. (PhotoForum)
- Participation in group shows such as The Art of Death, Bitter Harvest, and Communicating Vessels, where her work often dialogues with occult, mythological, spiritual, or folkloric motifs. (PhotoForum)
Theyers is drawn to work that unsettles, that evokes both nostalgia and strangeness. She uses symbols, dreams, and narrative fragments to explore subtleties of the inner self, especially from a female perspective. Her photographs are not merely representations but invitations into liminal realms where the familiar becomes uncanny. (artache.com)