Genesis features the unique perspectives of four artists, exploring concepts of origin, transformation, and the evolving relationships between people, place and material.

Drawing on ancestral forms and material vocabularies, Chris Charteris’ wall necklaces reflect a continuum of making that connects land, ocean and identity - grounding his practice in both tradition and contemporary reinterpretation.

Amanda Gruenwald’s vivid paintings occupy the space between spontaneity and control, where form emerges through gesture, layering, and an intuitive responsiveness to paint as matter.

Reimagining the cultivated garden through a decolonial lens, Molly Timmins questions imposed systems of order and control, positioning the garden as both cultural construct and site of transformation.

Jane Ussher (MNZM), recently welcomed to our Milford Galleries family, is one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated photographers, known for her intimate, atmospheric documentation of people and place. Ahead of her forthcoming solo exhibition, Ussher presents photographs of Shackleton’s Hut, offering a meditation on the endurance, fragility, and lasting impact of human endeavour in an extreme, elemental landscape.

Together, these artists consider genesis not as a singular origin, but as a layered, ongoing process — material, cultural, and ecological.  They invite reflection on the creation of meaning, the persistence of history - how past narratives continue to shape, challenge, and inform our understanding of the present, and the ways in which beginnings continue to unfold across time.