MY CHOICE: Ingrid Culliford / May 2020

Each month a member of our community is invited to browse our online collection and select six of their favourite artworks. Each ‘My Choice’ selection, together with personal responses to the works, will be available to view on the Sarjeant Gallery website for one month at a time. The May 2020 My Choice has been selected by Ingrid Culliford, musician and music teacher, and is available to view until 31 May 2020. After studying at the Royal Academy of Music, Ingrid Culliford spent more than 20 years working as a freelance flautist in London, touring Europe and the Americas with various orchestras and ensembles. She recorded frequently for BBC Radio 3 and worked as professor of flute at Trinity College, London. In 1994 Ingrid returned to NZ with her family, settling in Whanganui. Although she has continued to perform, teaching has been a significant feature of her life in NZ. Some of her teaching positions have included: flute teacher at Waikato University Conservatorium and the NZ School of Music at Victoria University, and Co-Director of Music at Nga Tawa Diocesan School. Ingrid is currently working as an individual tutor at Nga Tawa, Whanganui Collegiate School and her home studio.  One of her other passions is Chamber Music. In 2015 she was honoured to receive the “Marie Vandewart Memorial Award” for commitment to fostering a love of chamber music and to be appointed MNZM in the 2019 New Year Honours list for service to music and education.

Ingrid reflects….”over the years, I have enjoyed collaborating in projects at the Sarjeant – with Susan Frykberg in “Let the Art Sing”, and more recently in her Tylee Cottage project on Edith Collier, “It shows really, a rather beautiful spirit”, as well as contributing on several occasions to concerts in the “Musicians for the Sarjeant” series. It has been a pleasure to spend some of my lockdown hours inside the virtual Sarjeant Gallery, revisiting some favourite pieces and discovering a whole lot more!”

My Choice May 2020: Ingrid Culliford, musician and music teacher

Click on an image to see further details about the work and artist, and view a large version.

“This painting has been one of my absolute favourites since I first encountered it on a visit home in 1981 – my parents had moved up to the Turakina Valley and introduced me to the Sarjeant Gallery and the work of Edith Collier and the postcards came with me back to London. There is such a quiet strength in the figures of these women enhanced by the vivid colours of their clothing against the landscape. There is a beautiful setting by NZ composer Dorothy Buchanan of Hone Tuwhare’s poem, “Tangi”. When playing it, this painting has always come to mind.”

“I really enjoy the boldness of the shapes and colours in this work and the different light in the two larger panels – the contours of our landscapes and the quality of light speak to me in this work. There is a slightly personal connection here too. I was lucky to meet Michael Smither in 1976 while I was in Wellington doing some recordings at the beautiful studios of the now vanished Broadcasting House. He was as vibrant a personality as his painting suggests.”

“This is such a serene piece; it is not just the layers of the single colour which I find very soothing, but the simplicity of form and the way apparent tendrils wrap themselves around the vessel. Beautiful!”

“I couldn’t go past Peter McIntyre and this iconic landscape of our lovely part of the world. We grew up with Peter McIntyre’s New Zealand in the house, able to take virtual tours of the country through the paintings in that book, which has always been a family favourite. This feels like an autumnal painting, perfect for now. I love the detail of the clusters of sheep, the rocks at the river bend and the lone trees on the ridge tops, so similar to those we pass when driving through the Parapara Highway.”

“I’m a huge fan of Joan Miro’s work and have been lucky enough to visit the Miro Museum in Montjuic just outside Barcelona. This painting definitely makes me think of Miro and captures both the zaniness and vibrancy of some of his work.”

“What a beautiful moment captured here, a combination of light-hearted humour, tenderness and genuine intimacy. They are both so well dressed, I wonder where they might have been going or coming from. In contrast, the carefree pose of the woman is so informal. My first thought on coming across this photograph was of my late parents, who used to love to walk their dog, Jack along Anzac Parade to James McGregor Park. They might easily have sat in this same spot.”