20 November 2025 – 1 March 2026

A Moment to Hold

brunelle dias primbs, Hannah Ireland (Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi), Christina Pataialii, Johanna Pegler, Kate Small, Barbara Tuck, and Ruby Wilkinson.

Ruby Wilkinson, *Parade*, 2025 & Barbara Tuck, *Terrace of Fumaroles*, 2017. Photo by Sam Hartnett.

A Moment to Hold is a view of contemporary practice featuring seven women artists engaged in painting and drawing. The exhibition title draws on the evocative and intimate qualities inherent in their work. Through a range of subjects, including landscapes, figuration and interiors, the artists highlight the nuances of memory — how it can be shaped in many ways. Their works may refer to experiences that can be vividly recounted or exist as elusive, fragmented moments suspended in time.

This exhibition reveals creativity as a deeply personal act, where the artist shifts between roles - firstly as a participant and observer, then later as the one who gives form to memory through the act of making.

Several works in A Moment to Hold engage with themes of place and belonging, presenting visions of exterior and interior environments.

Barbara Tuck’s Paparoa Mystics (2024) depicts two small figures set within a scene of dense green bush, with a ruru (morepork) subtly concealed above. This work forms part of a broader body of paintings that are akin to visual travelogues. Tuck’s practice has long been shaped by her encounters with significant ecological sites across Aotearoa and Australia. In this instance, the setting is Paparoa, located on the west coast of Te Waipounamu, a region renowned for its limestone formations. The title of this series was inspired by Michelle Leggott’s poem Verde verde verde, underscoring the important role that literature and reading plays in the development of Tuck’s artistic practice.

Ruby Wilkinson’s Parade (2025) is a large-scale work, realised as a six-metre-long painted curtain. Characterised by bold brushstrokes and a warm colour palette, the piece reflects Wilkinson’s experiences in the Far North. Her abstracted forms evoke fleeting moments in time (sunsets, childhood memories, landscapes, and intimate personal relationships) inviting viewers into a deeply contemplative and resonant visual narrative.

A Moment to Hold is guided by stylistic contrasts, expressed through variations in mark-making, subject matter, and colour.

Johanna Pegler’s Flying Fog (2023) envelops the viewer in soft, creamy tones — lush pinks, gentle whites, and muted greys. The work reflects upon the changes we may observe in our everyday environment. Based on a memory, the painting captures a view of a large pūriri tree in Pegler’s backyard, shrouded in fog. Pegler presents a form of visual diary, referencing a moment just days after a fire had destroyed a historic building and her studio. The tree, however, stood firm, majestic and unshaken, while the fog and lingering smoke introduced new ways of seeing.

In contrast, Hannah Ireland’s Terrible Billy (2020) interrupts Pegler’s stillness with bold energy. A grimacing, clown-like face painted on glass evokes a visceral reaction, heightened by the texture of loose brushwork and a rough wooden frame. These are not traditional portraits; instead, they capture the emotional traces and inner presence of their subjects. Flowers replace eyes, features are abstracted — suggesting memory, feeling and transformation.

brunelle dias primbs (b. 1998, IND) is a painter based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She completed her Masters of Visual Art at AUT, School of Art and Design, in 2021. She is interested in the intimacy between figure and ground and the interconnection between past and present.
Recent exhibitions include aaj kal at CoCA, Christchurch and yahaan at Corban’s Estate Art Center in Auckland both in 2024, kiss taraf at The Art Paper, Auckland, soft protest at Play_Station, Wellington, playing the fool, Bruce, Tāmaki Makaurau both 2023; the way things are, The Physics Room, Ōtautahi, Idyll at Page Galleries, Te Whanganui-A-Tara; and The Local Migrant, RM Gallery, Tāmaki Makaurau, all 2022. dias was a finalist in the Eden Arts’ Art School Award and her work is held in the Auckland University of Technology Collection.
Through her fluid, large-scale paintings the artist captures transient moments between friends and family, offering poignant or humorous reflections on the nature of intimacy.
dias primbs often looks to the complexity of life as a first-generation immigrant to Aotearoa and the navigation of identity and belonging. 
Hannah Ireland (b. 1995, Ngāti Hine, Ngāpuhi) is a contemporary artist and painter from Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland. Hannah holds a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland. Ireland uses paint as a mode of storytelling; her practice playfully critiques the everyday self whereby she narrates a personal theatre reflective of different social arenas.  In 2021, Ireland received the Supreme award at the Molly Morpeth Canaday Awards for their painting They Laughed, I Cried.
Recent exhibitions include Tossing & Turning, Jhana Millers Gallery at the Aotearoa Art Fair (2024); Nā Te Ārai, Ko Māhū, Tautai Pacific Arts Trust (2024); Running With Scissors, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery (2023) and Strange Friends, The Dowse Art Muesum (2023). Ireland was awarded the Friends Of Waikato Museum Award at Aotearoa’s National Contemporary Art Award for her work Cheery Wine in 2023. 

Hannah Ireland is represented by Jhana Millers Gallery and Laree Payne Gallery.
Christina Pataialii (b.1988) is an MFA graduate of the Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design (2018) and is based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington. Christina Pataialii’s paintings oscillate between abstraction and representation, exploring the tensions that arise from merging culturally specific codes and visual languages. Pataialii’s practice moves through a series of spatial and material experimentations, navigating the relationship between proximity and distance as she explores aspects of identity and spaces of belonging.
Recent exhibitions include: McLeavey Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington: Long Walks, Quick Thoughts (2024), Aotearoa Art Fair, Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland: McLeavey Gallery (2023), Brisbane, Australia, The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10): A Hard Day’s Night (2022), New Museum Triennial, New York: Soft Water Hard Stone (2021), Tauranga Art Gallery: Proximity & Distance (2021), London, UK, Gasworks Residency (2019), Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery, Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington: The Tomorrow People (2017)
Christina Pataialii is represented by McLeavey Gallery.
Johanna Pegler was born in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in 1965. After graduating from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau in 1987, she spent 15 years living and painting at Waikawau Bay at the remote Northeastern tip of the Coromandel. In 2004 after being awarded the Sarjeant Art Gallery Tylee Residency, she relocated to Whanganui where she has lived ever since. Pegler is recognised as a producer of mysterious, transporting paintings founded on a distinctive feeling for unsung aspects of the local landscape.
Kate Small was born in Lower Hutt in 1968 and graduated from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau in 1991. Small’s paintings are held in public and private collections in Aotearoa and overseas. Her work has been exhibited at City Gallery, Wellington Te Whare Toi, Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History and, most recently, the Dowse Art Museum. She lives in Masterton.
Barbara Tuck was born in the Waikato 1943 and graduated with a Diploma of Fine Arts from Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland Waipapa Taumata Rau in 1965.
Tuck’s work has been exhibited in key surveys of painting in Aotearoa since the 1980s including Surface Tension (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 1992), A Very Peculiar Practice: Aspects of Recent New Zealand Painting (City Gallery, Wellington, 1995) and Necessary Distraction (Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2015).
Tuck’s paintings are held in many collections including The Arts House Trust, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu, Waikato Museum Te Whare Taonga o Waikato, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Manatū Aorere. Barbara Tuck – Delirium Crossing, a publication and travelling exhibition was developed by Anna Miles, Ramp Gallery WINTEC Te Pūkenga and Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery in 2022.
Johanna Pegler, Kate Small and Barbara Tuck are represented by Anna Miles Gallery.
Ruby Wilkinson is a BFA graduate from Massey University College of Creative Arts, Te Whanganui-a-Tara (2021) and won the New Zealand Paint and Printmaking Award in 2022.
Her colour palette references aspects of the environment that she holds dear — the early morning dawn, the ripple of waves on the ocean, the dense native bush around Titirangi where she grew up — earthy browns, ochre yellows, forest greens and ocean blues appearing on the exposed canvas and linen.

Recent exhibitions include: Cut Flowers - Jhana Millers Gallery (2025), Elemental, Te Atamira Gallery, - 27 June – 10 September, Queenstown (2025), Love is running towards - Ordinance Gallery, Melbourne (2024), Frontier - Grocer Gallery – (2024), Plus 1, Jhana Millers gallery (2024), Forward Song - Jhana Millers Gallery (2023), Blue Duck - Corbans Art Centre (2023), Washing Day, SPA_CE Napier, Ahuriri Napier (2023)

Ruby Wilkinson is represented by Jhana Millers Gallery.

In the spirit of A Moment to Hold, this series pauses to capture a point in the lives and careers of three artists whose works feature in the exhibition—Ruby Wilkinson, Hannah Ireland & brunelle dias primbs. Photographed by Ophelia Jones and paired with reflections on their practice, the series gently spotlights the artists as they are now, while preserving this moment as part of the exhibition’s archive.