MVH Art Gallery

Manu Berry - Fiordland

Summer 2011-2012 in the MVH Gallery
at Marlborough Vintners Hotel
Open 10am-5pm daily in the entrance hall

Closed Statutory holidays – enquiries please telephone 572 5094
or call the gallery curator Barbara Speedy on 0274 408 121
Further images can be viewed at www.thediversion.co.nz

Background to the exhibition

A brief family trip into Fiordland became a much greater journey for fast-rising Dunedin printmaker Manu Berry, exploring over the following months the dramatic scale, mysterious play of dark and light, and intense colours of New Zealand's southern region.

Manu Berry is best known for his woodcuts, and he used this technique to initiate these works. However these are handworked monoprints – there is only one of each, because he has created them by wiping, rolling and working layer upon layer of ink, with multiple pressings onto the image to build up colour depth and nuance. He works thin transparent layers up to the strong lines laid down with the woodblock.

The results are monoprints that read somewhat like watercolour, but with the definition of woodcut. He prefers the process of printmaking because there is always surprise, a flash of the unexpected, each time the paper emerges from the press.

He was fascinated by the way 'the light on the water, it's so deep and black, it's almost like all the colours sit on top of the black. There is no penetration. There's that richness you get when black is the base colour in a painting...

'It's all pushed to that crepuscular end of the scale. The translation of the Maori place name is 'shadowlands' – it's always in that shadowy twilight end of the spectrum.'

He found the soaring distances above the boat, and the dusty light, made it hard to conceive of the actual scale of the place, so it often becomes abstracted. The remoteness offers a sense of first discovery in these works, except for the Manapouri pylons. 'It was surreal seeing massive pylons in a place so unpopulated, yet knowing it provides a fifth of New Zealand's power. Yet they echo the grand nature of everything in the region.'

These breathtaking works show how superbly Berry pushes the limits of the medium, where printmaking and painting overlap. Yet he remains true to the affordability of the medium, with these superbly framed works only $850 each, despite being one-off works.

Born in Otago in 1978, Manu Berry lived in St Bathans as a child, in a family of artists. He moved to Dunedin, where he attended art school for a year before deciding to pursue his individual direction. After a time in Wellington, he returned last year to Dunedin, which is particularly known for its fine tradition of printmaking. His travels into the hinterland are just one influence – he also explores narrative series, urban architecture, people and flora... from the intimate to the vast scale. This is his second solo exhibition at MVH Gallery.

About the gallery

The MVH Gallery focuses primarily on exhibiting New Zealand artists using the various forms of printmaking – such as woodcut, etching, aquatint, mezzotint, lithograph. Some are young new talents already making their mark, others are prominent and collectible New Zealand artists, who remain committed to the affordability and hand-made processes of printmaking.

Artworks for travellers

A good selection of unframed fine art prints by our exhibited artists is available from the gallery curator,
Barbara Speedy – tel +64 +27 4408121 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

We can pack and courier works nationally and internationally, framed or unframed.