PAULNACHE

PAULNACHE brushes aside all the rules and formalities that come with being a contemporary dealer gallery in Aotearoa New Zealand. Operating since 2009 the Gallery has set its own course and proposed a new model for the dealer gallery, blurring the lines between public and private gallery, between dealer and curator, house style and punk attitude. It offers less a consumable list or stable of artists than a family or community of artist /collaborators who come together and work with Nache to each extend their own practice, whilst contributing to the greater whole which is the unrelenting forward momentum of this Gallery.

Refusing to join the crowd and rejecting the received wisdom that says galleries belong in the big cities, PAULNACHE operates out of the coastal town of Gisborne, on the East Coast of Aotearoa’s North Island. Gisborne provides PAULNACHE with more than just its physical base – a gallery in a refurbished building on the city’s main street. At a time when many galleries claimed noncommittally to ‘be based’ in a particular location, PAULNACHE draws its energies and ambitions from this city, and offers much in return. Committed to the local as well as the national, PAULNACHE has built a passionate community for contemporary art in Gisborne, and beyond.

PAULNACHE may be rooted in Gisborne, but reaches much further. Regularly launching out from its physical base, the Gallery is renown for its innovative and often subversive presence at art fairs and projects. It supports exhibitions of its artists in other cities and countries, particularly Australia, which ensures that new thinking and context on and around its artists is always present.

Working on a network model, drawing on connections to identify opportunities and make things happen quickly, the PAULNACHE Gallery has established a reputation for dynamic and creative solutions in the presentation of its stable of artists, many of whom have substantial practices that are not recognised by the dominant narratives of art history.

PAULNACHE sees itself as a gallery in the provinces, rather than a provincial gallery, representing its family of artists to national and increasingly international audiences. At the heart of the Gallery is the desire to teach people to have an emotional connection with art, and to foster the sense of value that art has in terms of society, community, culture and life.