Exhibition of self-portraits honours memory of young artist

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Exhibition of self-portraits honours memory of young artist

Ashley Smyth

06 February 2025, 9:00 PM

Exhibition of self-portraits honours memory of young artist

Arrow Koehler taken by Arrow Moon Koehler and supplied by Sam and Rick Koehler.

“Never for one moment think the world is better without you in it,” is a message Sam and Rick Koehler want everyone to receive.

Their daughter Arrow Koehler was 19 when she died suddenly last year, and next Saturday (February 15), the day after what should have been her 20th birthday, an exhibition of her self-portraits will be opening at Ōamaru’s Forrester Gallery.

Good Bones: The Many Phases of Arrow Moon opens on February 15 and runs until April 6 in the Community Gallery space.

The name comes from the brand Arrow came up with for her artwork and clothing, Good Bones, so it felt right to include it, Sam says.

She also, as an artist, wanted a name that was different from the name she used working as a journalist, so she chose Arrow Moon - her first and middle names.

The exhibition came about after her parents discovered it had been a dream of hers.

It is a collection of more than 50 photographs, and seven paintings, and a few items of clothing Arrow “reinvented”.

“Arrow’s friends told us after she passed that she wanted to have an exhibition,” Rick says. “And then Sam had found writings in her diary to state the same thing, and so that's why we're putting it together.”

Most of the works are from art portfolios Arrow had completed as a student at Waitaki Girls’ High School, along with a few others, Sam says.

Rick feels proud Arrow’s work is being displayed, fulfilling one of her wishes.

Pulling the exhibition together was harder some days than others, Sam says.

“It’s probably not so much the physical work, you know, because she had it sort of all done, and we just had to go through it and choose. But it was the emotional work of looking through it, that was the biggy, you know.

“On some days, you know, it felt nice, it felt comforting. On other days, it was really painful.”

Sam says she would swing from the joy of seeing what her daughter had accomplished and feeling grateful to be her mother, to the pain of recognising the huge potential she had and the despair of her loss.

Her overwhelming emotion though, was pride.

“I’m so proud of Arrow, of her artistic achievements.”

While helping to collate the works, Rick struggled with the thought that though Arrow was talented and involved in a lot of activities, "it still wasn't enough”.

“She's a very complex character,” Sam says. “And I think the variety of work that's shown in the exhibition will show that she had all these different characters she fulfilled, and interests.”

While Arrow’s parents will keep the originals of all her work, there will be prints for sale, with proceeds going to the Life Matters Suicide Prevention Trust, an organisation which had been a huge support to the couple over the past months.

Arrow loved people, her mother says.

She loved taking photos of children when she was working as a journalist, and seeing how excited they got telling her their names afterwards.

“She said they got such joy from that. So she was happy she was able to bring others joy.”

It was a coincidence that the exhibition opening falls so near Arrow’s Valentine’s Day birthday.

“There were just two time slots available this year for the community space, and one of them happened to be starting on the 15th, so it kinda felt meant to be,” Sam says.

A self-portrait of Arrow which, after her death, Sam and a friend secretly hung on the wall of Bruce Mahalski's Museum of Natural Mysteries in Dunedin. The stunt was a copycat of Mahalski's planting of his own work at Te Papa, in Wellington. Photo: Supplied