The Crucible Artist Residency pilot programme moved into its second phase this week with new artists John Ward Knox and Motoko Kikkawa beginning their 16-week residencies on Monday.

Motoko and John follow on from the first artist residents, Sian Quennell Torrington and Karen Aitken.

All four were selected as the inaugural participants of the programme, which was launched by the Hynds Foundation and Gillies MetalTech foundry, at the foundry, last year.

Motoko Kikkawa was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1968. After obtaining a degree in philosophy at Nihon University, she moved to Dunedin more than 20 years ago.

She graduated from the Dunedin School of Art in 2010, and has been a vibrant part of the local and national art scene from the outset, as her myriad solo or collective shows, residencies, and violin performances up and down the country attest, in both public and private spaces, Hynds Foundation programme director Leanne Gibson says.

A prolific visual artist primarily creating highly detailed works on paper, Motoko is also unafraid to test boundaries, genres, and new materials (including video, kirigami from old wallpaper, kelp, clay, and mushroom spore tests). 

She is a talented violinist who regularly plays with various formations and her music-making reflects her approach to art: she listens intently, picks up moods and keys, finding harmonies and atonal notes that suggest new pathways to explore.

Motoko Kikkawa.

John Ward Knox is an artist living and working from Karitane, near Dunedin.

Working within a broad range of mediums and techniques, Ward Knox’s work expresses material lightness and conceptual depth.

John is represented in numerous public collections including Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, and Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago.

"The Hynds Foundation and Gillies MetalTech are excited to welcome John and Motoko to Ōamaru," Leanne says.

"The residency location in Ōamaru’s heritage precinct provides a unique context for the artists that is both industrially and historically immersive."

John Ward Knox.

The repurposed foundry pattern shop has been developed for the artists to offer private studio spaces, and also have opportunities to build connections locally and with visitors enjoying the heritage precinct.

Karen Aitken’s time in the residency saw her bring focus to the microscopic, beautiful world of Ōamaru diatoms, and their anthropological and geological place in the Waitaki District.

Sian Quennell Torrington’s body of work was inspired by foundry processes as a metaphor for transformational experiences.

An exhibition of John and Motoko’s works will be held toward the end of their residency period, culminating at King’s Birthday weekend.